The Metaphysical Review 22/23 November 1995 84 pages The People Issue The People Who Started It All Race Mathews People in the Seventies Sally Yeoland and John Bangsund People: Incidents and Accidents Terry Frost, Gerald Murnane, Don Ashby People: Life and Times Shayne McCormack, Henry Gasko, Dave Piper, John Brosnan, Robert Day, Mark Lawson, Jeanne Mealy, Caseyjnne Wolf People Missing in Action: Memories of Lost Friends and Relatives Bruce Gillespie, John Brosnan, Andy Sawyer, Jeanne Mealy, Paul Anderson, Mae Strelkov, Mark Loney, Chris Chittieburgh, Ben Indick, Doug Barbour, Henry Gasko, John Newman, David Lake

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j in co co o Z $ 1 i The Metaphysical Review 22/23

November 1995 84 pages

THE METAPHYSICAL REVIEW No. 22/23, November 1995, is edited and published by Bruce Gillespie, 59 Keele Street, Collingwood, Victoria 3066, Australia (ph: (03) 9419-4797). Printed by Copy Placed Melbourne. Available for subscriptions (SA25 within Australia, equivalent of SA35 (airmail) overseas), written or graphic contributions, traded publications, or donations. All cheques to ‘Bruce Gillespie’.

ART AU photographs processed by Ellikon Printers. Front cover: (Left to right) Leigh Edmonds, Lee Harding, Sally Yeoland, John Bangsund at Aussiecon I, 1975. Photo by Kelvin Roberts (?), as for p. 36. Interior photographs: Elaine Cochrane (p. 4); David Parker (p. 6); Lee Harding (p. 13); unknown (pp. 17, 22), John Bangsund (p. 31),John Litchen (pp. 24 and 35). Graphics: Terry Frost (pp. 45-51), Ditmarjenssen (pp. 64 and 71).

EDITORIAL & FAREWELLS LIFE, LOVE AND FANDOM IN THE SEVENTIES 3, 67 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS 17 SALLY AND JOHN: THE EARLY YEARS Bruce Gillespie Sally Yeoland, Marie Maclean with large sections of the writing of Philip Hodgins John Bangsund John Brosnan Andy Sawyer Jeanne Mealy CONSTANTINOPLE, Melbourne, Easter 1994 Paul Anderson THYLACON, Hobart, 10-12 June 1995 Mae Strelkov 45 FOUR DAYS IN ANOTHER CON. Mark Loney FOUR DAYS IN THE LAND OF THE Chris Chittieburgh ANTHROPOPHAGI Ben Indick Terry Frost Doug Barbour Henry Gasko John Newman TWO GREAT FALLS David Lake 52 THE FALLING Gerald Murn an e BEGINNINGS OF 54 THROUGH A FALSE CEILING THE MELBOURNE SCIENCE FICTION CLUB Don Ashby 5 WHIRLAWAY TO THRILLING WONDER STORIES: FEATURE LETTERS BOYHOOD READING IN WARTIME AND 56 LIFE AND TIMES POSTWAR MELBOURNE Shayne McCormack Race Mathews Henry Gasko Dave Piper John Brosnan Robert Day Mark Lawson Jeanne Mealy Casey June Wolf

2 I Must Be Talking to My Friends

BRUCE GILLESPIE Happy birthday, Brian MARIE MACLEAN Happy birthday, Brian Aldiss. I read about this PHILIP HODGINS occasion in Locus. This issue is my birthday card. JOHN BROSNAN I guess you’re as surprised to reach the age of ANDY SAWYER 70 as I was to reach the age of 48 in February this JEANNE MEALY year. That’s not what it says inside my head. The real PAUL ANDERSON me is always 26, or perhaps younger. What age is MAE STRELKOV the real Brian Aldiss? I think of you as in your late MARK LONEY thirties, matching the first pictures I saw of you, CHRIS CHITTLEBURGH on those early Faber & Faber hardbacks. Or perhaps at the age of 49, the age you were when BEN INDICK we met in England in early 1974. But 49 is the DOUG BARBOUR age I turn next year! HENRY GASKO The 70-year-old Brian Aldiss seems as cheerful and delighted by life as ever. *My best years have JOHN NEWMAN really been in my 60s,’ you say (Locus 416, Sep­ DAVID LAKE tember 1995, p. 85). There’s a kind of Plimsoll line in life ... It came to me when I was 50. It suddenly dawned on me I’m never going to direct a movie! I’m never gonna fly a big transatlantic plane ... It also dawned on me that in fact these Spot the boo-boo negatives were positives. All these things were Elaine did not proofread TMR 19/20/21, boyhood fantasies, and if you get rid of them, you therefore the issue is riddled with boo-boos. cure yourself not of disillusionment — you cure The very worst mistake appears on the yourself of illusion, and you curtail your expecta­ cover, and in several places in the text. Roger tion . . . you think, “Jesus, life is wonderful! How Weddall was not bom in 1953, but in 1956. did I do this?” ’ He met Walt Willis at MagiCon. not Con­ That’s only a selection from this wonderful spiracy. page of Aldissisms — the essence of the person I And, of course, my postcode is now 3066, would like to have been. He’s also the writer I not 3001, as it says in the colophon. would like to have been: not only for the quality It’s Moor Street, Fitzroy, not Moore Street. of novels like Hothouse, Barefoot in the Head and Forgotten Life, critical work like Trillion Year Spree Cat news and stories like The Worm That Flies’ and The Since No. 19/20/21 was written, the truly Saliva Tree’, but for the sheer variety of work over wonderful Monty died from liver cancer. At more than 40 years. first we thought we could never replace him. Happy birthday, Brian! It seemed that Sophie would kill any at­ tempted intruder. When four kittens were dumped on us at the beginning of 1995, The fast forward button Elaine found homes for three of them on the VCR of life (thanks, Alan and Judy, and LynC and Clive). We hired a large cage, in which the fourth kitten, Polly, lived until the other cats were Every optimistic Aldiss has to be balanced by a used to her. Polly, a grey kitten with prob­ pessimistic Gillespie. And Gillespie at 48-nearly- lems with one of her eyes (hence Polyphemus 49 feels that he’s well and truly reached the = Polly), is no fool. She set out to charm Plimsoll line of life when all the illusions have Sophie, and succeeded, and soon charmed disappeared. Truth to tell, I can't see myself doing all the others except Theodore. Theodore any of the things I’d really like to be doing, does not like rival prima donnas. although I’m the first to admit I've achieved many things I never imagined myself doing. I had the

3 For more than 25 years. I’ve used this column as a diary of the events in the Life of Bruce. I can’t do that any more. There are hardly any events to write about. Somebody seems to have pushed the fast forward button on the VCR of life. My 1995 was divided into two sections — two large textbooks I was desktop-publishing — sepa­ rated by short ‘holidays’ in which I tried to finish this issue. Elaine has been working almost non­ stop. editing at home, so we haven’t taken a holiday away from home for five years. I’ve seen few films at the cinema. I’ve been to five concerts in the last two years, and we’ve even cut back on our restaurant outings. The highlights of these years have been the CDs I’ve listened to, the books I’ve read, the films I’ve watched, dinners with friends. Nova Mob meetings, a monthly film­ watching gathering, local Neighbourhood Watch meetings, the arrival of Polly the kitten, letters I’ve received (more than 50 per cent response rate on TMR 19/20/21), and three conventions (Constan­ tinople, ANZAPACon and Arcon), two of which were unashamedly devoted to nostalgia. It’s been a good life, but nothing much to write about. Nearly two years later, I cannot remember a great deal about being one of the Fan Guests of Honour at Constantinople (Easter 1994). It was very enjoyable. Being a Guest of Honour gave me a chance to meet people I’d heard about but never set eyes on. I got some idea of the complex pattern that is Australian fandom these days. And it was a wonderful surprise to receive a Ditmar for Best Fan Writer at the end of it all. (The battle between Terry Frost and me for Best Fan Writer Ditmar is told in Terry’s articles.) A still from the VCR of life: Thanks to Perry Middlemiss and Marc Ortlieb, Bruce Gillespie at the beginning of 1995, the two most visible organisers of ANZAPAcon plus Polly, who is now much larger. (October 1993) and Arcon (September 1993). There seem to be hundreds of media conventions each year in Australia, so we old farts struck back. Justin Semmel, at the age of 30 or so, was the youngest person at ANZAPACon, which cele­ brated 25 years of Australia’s oldest and best- established amateur publishing association. The highlight of that convention was yarning to Gary Mason, who has mellowed even more than I have. Arcon was designed to celebrate 20 years since Aussiecon I (the World Convention held in Mel­ bourne in 1975) and ten years since Aussiecon II unbelievable luck to live in Australia during the (1985, the second time the World Convention second half of the twentieth century. 1 had the came to Melbourne). Like ANZAPAcon, it had an unbelievable luck to find Elaine for my life's part­ ideal size (100-150 attendees), and brought to­ ner. I'm one of the few people still making a living gether people who remember when Australian from something I'm good at. fandom was one group, before it split into splinter But I’ve never been able to earn a living from groups. Lots of nostalgic slides, a showing of the any activity that really satisfies me. I can't find it Aussiefan film, nostalgic panellists, and the in myself to write fiction — and even if I could appearance of Don Ashby helped to make this into write the stuff, I doubt if I could make a living from a Mellowcon. Not that all was backward looking: doing it. The good luck is that occasionally, very panel items about fanzine publishing turned into occasionally, I can find the time and money to arcane discussions of the ins and outs of Internet publish a fanzine, which is what 1 like doing. publishing. Me? I don’t have a modem yet.

(Continued on Page 67)

4 RACE MATHEWS was, as this article shows, one of the founder members of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club, and since 1992 has returned to an active interest in sf. To the rest of the world, however, he is Director of the Institute of Politics and Public Affairs in the Graduate School of Government at Monash University. He was Victoria’s Minister for Community Services (1987—88) and Minister for the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services (1982-87). He represented Oakleigh in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1979 to 1992, and Casey in the federal House of Representatives from 1972 to 1975, and was a Councillor for the City of Croydon from 1964 to 1966. He was Principal Private Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition in Victoria (1976-79) and federally (1967-72). His Australia's First Fabians: Middle-Class Radicals, Labour Activists and the Early Labour Movement was published by Cambridge University Press in 1993, and he is currently writing about the co-operative movement in Britain, Canada and Spain. Race Mathews opened each of the 1975 and 1985 Worldcons, both held in Melbourne.

BEGINNINGS OF THE MELBOURNE SCIENCE FICTION CLUB

WHIRLAWAY TO THRILLING WONDER STORIES: Boyhood reading in wartime and postwar Melbourne by Race Mathews

(Paper on the origins of the Melbourne Science Fiction in a neighbourhood Woolworth’s store. The bin was Group presented for the Nova Mob by Race Mathews, labelled ‘Yank Magazines: Interesting Reading’. 7 September 1994.) Frederik Pohl — a prominent American science fiction writer — has described coming across his first copy of First encounters Science Wonder Stones Quarterly when he was nine. Predict­ Any account of the origins of the Melbourne Science ably, a scaly green monster dominated its cover. As Pohl Fiction Group, which later became the Melbourne recalls, ‘I opened it up. The irremediable virus entered Science Fiction Club, must in the nature of things be as my veins.’ much about biography as history. In order to under­ There is a common thread that links these episodes stand how the MSFG (Melbourne Science Fiction and the pre-war science fiction experience more gener­ Group) was established, it is necessary also to under­ ally. Science fiction, once discovered, was abundant and stand how in the first place the Group’s founders readily accessible. As Pohl has pointed out: ‘Magazines acquired tastes for science fiction which were tanta­ were a Depression business. If you couldn’t afford fifty mount to an addiction, and what it was that led them on cents to take the family to the movies, you could prob­ further to the point where an organisation was required. ably scrape up a dime or twenty cents to buy a magazine, In as much as what follows sets out the development of and then pass the magazine back and forth to multiply my own reading habits to the point of my discovery' of the investment.' For Amis, in Britain, the price would science fiction and membership of the MSFG, it is have been even lower. The ‘Yank Magazines' from his offered as a paradigm from which the experiences of Woolworth's bin would almost certainly have been others may differ in detail, but which in a broad sense unsold copies returned to the publishers from news­ reflects the group as a whole. stands across America. ‘ Returns’ were shipped out of the By definition, there are as many accounts of first country by weight to England and Australia, and resold encounters with science fiction as there are readers of by department stores at a price marginally higher than science fiction. The English novelist Kingsley Amis has their value as scrap paper. described how, at the age of‘twelve orso’, he discovered A further common thread exists in the relative ease with science fiction while rummaging through a display bin which pre-war science fiction readers were able to make

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Race Mathews.

contact with one another. Pohl belonged in quick suc­ universe so young that life as yet had conic to only a few cession to the Brooklyn Science Fiction League, the East worlds’. Being a science fiction fan at the time was still New York Science Fiction League, the Independent mostly a solitary pursuit, involving something akin truly League, the International Cosmos Fiction Club and the to ‘the loneliness of gods looking out across infinity and Futurians. To quote him for the last time: ‘We changed finding none to share their thoughts’. Books and maga­ clubs the way Detroit changes tail fins, every year had a zines were few and far between. Those which turned up new one and last year’s was junk.’ In the unlikely event through painstaking searching and scrounging had to that Kingsley Amis had wanted to join a fan club, the be savoured, eked out and repeatedly re-read. Often a choice open to him in pre-war Britain would have in­ point was reached where a favourite story was known cluded various chapters of Hugo Gemsback’s Science virtually by heart. We had reason to understand better Fiction Association and the British Interplanetary Soci­ than most the much-quoted paraphrase of a famous ety. Pre-war Australian readers had a Futurian Society 1949 Astounding Science Fiction punchline: It is a proud of Melbourne and a Futurian Society of Sydney. and lonely thing to be a fan'. The situation in immediately postwar Melbourne was different. There is a passage in Arthur Clarke’s short Proto-fan story ‘The Sentinel* which, even today, those of us who It was my good luck to be born into a household where were growing up at the time cannot read without emo­ science fiction was accepted and appreciated, at a time tion. Clarke wrote: when reading was not yet in the process of being sup­ planted for entertainment purpose by the electronic Nearly a hundred thousand million stars are turning media. My father before me had been an avid reader of in the circle of the Milky Way, and long ago races in H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the worlds of other suns must have scaled and passed Sir Henry Rider Haggard, and a keen collector of the the heights that we have reached. Think of such early American science fiction magazine Amazing Stones. civilisations, far back in time against the fading after­ The sale of his collection to meet mid-Depression glow of Creation, masters of a universe so young that household expenses around the time of my birth was in life as yet had come to only a handful of worlds. a sense a metaphor for a life which was largely given over Theirs must have been a loneliness we cannot imag­ to sacrifice of his and my mother’s interests to those of ine, the loneliness of gods looking out across infinity their children. and finding none to share their thoughts. As a small child, I was walked up and down in my father’s arms while he recited over and over again from Science fiction seemed to us in Melbourne in the late memory poems such as ‘Horatius’ and ‘The Battle of nineteen-forties and early nineteen-fifties to be truly ‘a Lake Regulus’ from Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome,

6 Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’; Blake’s ‘The Tiger’; Byron’s ‘The newly occupied family home carried them downwards Destruction of Sennacherib'; Coleridge’s 'Khubla through successive geological strata and backwards in Khan’ and ‘The Ancient Mariner’; Cowper’s ‘Boadicca’; time, to the dawn of life in the Archaeozoic Era or ‘Age and ‘The Ballad of East and West’ and ‘Gunga Din’ from of Oldest Things’. The return journey took place by a Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads. In time, the recitations series of doors, each opening into a new geological became participative. He might select for example a epoch, which the party was able to explore. At each passage from Macaulay reading: stage, new inventories of exotic creatures — trilobites But when the face of Sextus was seen among the and sea-lillies in the Cambrian sea, dinosaurs in the foe Jurassic and Cretaceous swamps and forests and dawn­ A yell that rent the firmament from all the town horses and sabre-toothed tigers on the grassy plains of arose. the Plioscenc — unfolded for them. Like Helen and her I On the housetops were no woman but spat companions, I was captivated. Dinosaurs preoccupied towards him and hissed, me, to the exclusion virtually of all else. Helen’s home No child but screamed out curses and . . . — ‘Lyell Lodge’ — was described as having been named after the great geologist, Sir Charles Lyell. Lyell instantly At that point there would be a pause, and I would be became my hero. A geologist was what I wanted to be. expected to complete the line with the missing words My tongue began finding its way around perplexingly ‘shook his little fist’. A passage from Tennyson might polysyllabic words such as ‘archeoptcryx’ and 'paleo­ read: zoic'. When I was six, and the birth of my first brother was imminent, my parents consulted widely about a That which we arc, we arc — suitable name. My contribution was ‘Lyell’. Other claims One equal temper of heroic hearts had to be accommodated, but William Alwyn Lyell Made weak by time and fate Mathews he duly became. All this was to go for nothing. But strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and . . . My enthusiasm for rocks turned out to have been pre­ mature. A year or so later, I discovered my father’s copy I would supply the missing words ‘not to yield’ with — of Leonard C. Woolley’s Ur of the Chaldees. It was plain as my father later reported it — the lisping approxima­ immediately that geology was a second-best. What I tion ”oo mustn’t ’icld’. really wanted was to be an archaeologist. My father also took turns with my mother at satisfying Whirlaway was a World War II casually. Its appearance my insistent demand to have books and stories read to from the English publisher Hutchinson in the late 1930s me. The books mostly were borrowed from the chil­ coincided with the lead-up to hostilities. Under wartime dren’s shelves of the Melbourne Public Lending Library conditions, few copies ever reached Australia, and the in Latrobe Street, now long since closed. At the age of London stocks were destroyed in the Blitz. All but a tiny five or six I began reading for myself, but the reading minority of Australian children — in which by good luck aloud by my parents continued. It was their habit to I was included — missed out on what otherwise would periodically take a break for a cup of tea or — in my undoubtedly have become an enduring favourite to father’s case — a smoke. I very much resented the rival Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, The Adventures of Blinky Bill interruptions, and responded by hiding — and on no­ and The Magic Pudding. In the absence of a proven table occasions destroying — the cigarettes. In the market for Morant’s unique wayof introducing children longer term, my frustration immunised me perma­ to science, his sequel — The Ether Chariot, which was to nently against ever becoming either a tea-drinker or a have done for astronomy what Whirlaway was intended smoker. It is open to conjecture what consequences to do for geolog}’ and palaeontology — was never com­ might have followed if the breaks had been — and I had pleted. An exhibition of Jean Elder’s superb illustra­ known them to be — for sex. tions at the Gould Gallery in 1987 prompted hopes that The books I most liked to have read to me — and a new edition of Whirlaway might be produced, but no ultimately re-read for myself — included H. C. F. action was taken. A further opportunity was lost in 1993, Morant’s neglected classic Australian fantasy Whirlaway, when a re-release could have been co- incided with the Hugh Lofting's Dr Doolittle stories; The Midnight Folk marketing of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. It remains and The Box of Delights by the poet laureate, John Mase­ for some enlightened publisher to give back to Austra­ field; Kathleen Tozer’s Mumfie stories; An Experiment lian children the classic which they have so long and with St George by the mathematician J. W. Dunne, who needlessly been denied. also wrote the much better known An Experiment With Time, and the geneticist J. B. S. Haldane’s My Friend Mr Upwey — where we went to live in 1941 — had a small Leakey. Other favourites were T. H. White’s The Sword in library’ attached to its post office, where I learned for the the Stone, Waller De La Mare's The Three Mulla-Mulgar, first time to choose books for myself and how they were A. E. Coppard’s Pink Furniture, Norman Hunter’s The borrowed. It was there that I came across the Budge and Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm with the Betty books, with their stories about elves and fairies, inspired illustrations by Heath Robinson; and C. S. and toy ships and cars which could be increased to life Forester’s Poo-Poo and the Dragons. size at the touch of a magic ring and travelled in to Whirlaway featured an eleven-year-old heroine, remote and exotic places. The syllabus at the Upwey Helen, who set out on her adventures in the company Higher Elementary School included a smattering of of her pet koala, Tirri, and Whirlaway himself, who was myths and legends of Greece, Rome and Scandinavia, a friendly sunbeam. A hidden lift in the cellar of her which whetted my appetite for adventures invoking

7 gods and heroes. J. R. R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit was — was introduced to Chums in 1895 by Sir Arthur brought home for me by my father one night from the Quiller-Couch, and was writing for it as late as 1940. He Public Lending Library in Melbourne. I and later my was a master of suspense and colour, who specialised in brothers asked to have it back so repeatedly that it must settings such as the Crusades, the Spanish Armada, the have seemed to other would-be borrowers to have been English Civil War, the Monmouth Rebellion and the permanently unavailable. At some stage we sent a letter French Revolution. His plots were carried forward at to Tolkien, asking him the sort of questions about breakneck speed, and lifted by a flair for dialogue. Moria, Gondolin and the Necromancer which are now Typical titles were ‘Rogues of the Fiery Cross’, ‘Hurrah known to have reached him in all but overwhelming for Merry Sherwood’, ‘Under Nelson’s Flag’ and ‘The numbers. There was no reply, but the effort was not Sword of Tailifer Trueblade’. Illustrations were by Paul wasted. Our names must have been filed for future Hardy. Hardy— a frequent exhibitor of watercolours at reference by the publishers, Allen & Unwin. In 1953, the Royal Academy — used live models, period cos­ when I was eighteen, they sent me the prospectus for a tumes and authentic artifacts such as muskets and cut­ further story about hobbits, which was to be issued in lasses to achieve the meticulous and etching-like three volumes as The Lord of the Rings. As a result, I was precision of the work in Chums for which he was so much able to savour the exquisite suspense of waiting months more widely known. It was years before I was finally able after The Fellowship of the Ring reached me for The Two to see past his snarling sans-culottes and brutal Round­ Towers\.o\>e published, and months again for The Return heads to the realities of history which he and Walkey of the King. largely disregarded. The war reduced the availability of new books for The war also drastically reduced the availibility of children to a trickle. In as much as I acquired books as comics. What comics meant to me initially was mostly opposed to borrowing them, it was mostly at impatiently Chicks’ Own, Rainbow and other picture papers from waited-for birthdays and Christmases. These were usu­ Britain. There were also intermittently — courtesy of ally secondhand copies — or ‘wartime austerity edi­ the department store trade in ‘returns’ — comics from tions’ — of books my parents had read in their the American ‘Famous Funnies’ stable such as Oakey- childhoods. Long before I heard of Edith Nesbit as a Doakes, Alley-Oop, Buck Rogers and — a special favourite founder member of the Fabian Society — a body to of mine — The Search for the Long Lost Swink Treasure. I which I later belonged — her name was familiar to me graduated in time to Knockout. Radio Fun, Film Fun and as the author of The Magic Worldand The Railway Children Beano. Later again, there were Champion, Wizard, Rover, which were presents given to me at Upwey, as well as The Ilotspur and Adventure. The paper shortage meant that Would-Be-Goods, Five Children and II, The Phoenix and the the size of comics was drastically reduced. Supplies had Carpet and The Story of the Amulet which came my way to run the gauntlet of submarines and other wartime later. hazards before appearing for sale on Wednesdays at the Somebody’s chance recommendation of Richmal local newsagency. Keeping up with the serials which Crompton’s William books to a generous grandmother their contents largely comprised acquired a special qual­ caused all the titles then in print to be included in the ity of heightened expectancy. It was never certain, from pillow case which served as my Christmas slocking in one Wednesday to the next, whether the latest install­ 1943. My parents regarded Crompton’s work as trash, ments about my favourite characters — the Iron but I doted on it. Reading and thinking about William Teacher, Wilson the superhuman athlete, Rockfist and his friends Ginger, Douglas and Henry — known Rogan RAF and the Lost Commandos — might not collectively as ‘the Outlaws’ — preoccupied me for already be lying somewhere on the bottom of the sea. months. At night, I dreamed about them. The humour The gaps were filled for me in part by a store of of the stories was largely lost on me. What mattered was annuals and boys’ weeklies from the 1920s which had that, whatever William’s faults may have been, he belonged to my father and uncles. These had survived thought big. His flights of imagination and freedom in the garden shed of my grandparents’ home at 120 from inhibition might repeatedly land him in trouble, Brighton Road, Elsternwick, where we moved from but they were very much what I wanted for myself. Upwey in 1943, so that I could enter the Melbourne Christmas 1943 also brought me the first of a number Grammar preparatory school at Grimwade House in of volumes of the boys’ weekly Chums which for years Caulfield the following year. Further fragments of figured among my most highly valued possessions, and Chums apart, the item which initially most attracted me prompted me to interest myself increasingly in history. was a battered copy of the Greyfriars Holiday Annual for Chums — dedicated on its title page ‘To the Boys of the 1929. 'Hie contents — school stories over the names of Empire on which the Sun Never Sets’ — had had a Frank Richards, Martin Clifford and Owen Conquest — lifespan from 1892 to 1941, which coincided roughly were in reality all written by the master school story with the high tide of the British Empire. The contents writer Charles Hamilton. Hamilton’s major creations reflected the full range of topics in which the Empire's and the weekly papers in which they featured — Harry future citizens were expected to interest themselves. Wharton and Co. and Billy Bunter of Greyfriars in the School stories by masters of the genre such as P. G. Magnet, Tom Merry and Co. and Arthur Augustus Wodehouse, L. C. Douthwaite and Gunby Hadath alter­ D’Arcy of St Jim’s in the Gem and Jimmy Silver and Co. nated with adventure stories from the pens of Frank H. in the Popular — were household words throughout Shaw, Charles Gilson and John Hunter. most of the British Empire for the first half of the Most of all there were serials on historical themes by twentieth century. The subject of Hamilton’s lead story S. Walkey. Walkey—by trade a staff controller in a bank for my 1929 Holiday Annual — ‘When Billy Bunter

8 Forgot’ — was Bunter losing his memory and becoming Attempts to explore a sunken galleon were interrupted a reformed character after diving headfirst into an by an undersea earthquake. Giant seaweed brought up empty swimming pool. Hamilton's second contribution from the depths by the upheaval immobilised the Wan­ — ‘Tom Merry's Minor' — was about mishaps and mis­ derer, and sea-serpents and giant squids similarly dis­ understandings at St Jim's following the rescue of a placed from their normal habitats menaced the monkey from a cruel owner who turned out to have passengers and crew. The chief hijacker was dragged taught it to steal for him. A third Hamilton story — ‘A under the weed to his death by an unseen monster while Rift at Rookwood’ — described a falling-out and recon­ attempting to make off with the pearls. Installing a giant ciliation within the ‘Fiscal Four’ asjimmy Silver and his blade on the bow of the Wanderer finally enabled the three closest friends were known to their schoolmates. party to cut its way through the weed to freedom, and ‘The mental world of the Gem and the Magnet' — as return in triumph for the new term at St Frank’s. some have seen it — was attacked later on grounds Domestically, there was a great fire of St Frank’s, several ranging from snobbery and cheap patriotism to having great floods and periodic destructions of the school by shyed off references to sex, by critics as far removed earthquakes and explosions. Disruptive newcomers had ideologically from one another as George Orwell and to be discouraged from conducting gambling dens in Noel Coward. For me at the time, Hamilton’s work was disused classrooms and engaging in seances and black unalloyed delight. Unhappily my exposure to it was magic. I leadmasters were driven mad by scheming rivals short-lived. The Holiday Annual, as I to my abiding or had attractive young wives who turned out to be drug disappointment now learned, had been discontinued in addicts. Tyranny — on the part either of the school 1940, along with the Magnet and the Gem. Secondhand authorities or outsiders such as the renegade German- copies had for practical purposes similarly vanished American millionaire William K. Smith — provoked from sale. It was not until well into the postwar era that mutinies and barring-outs. Christmases were spent at facsimile editions of the ‘companion papers' as I had by country mansions which could be counted on to be then learned to call them were re-issued, to widespread haunted. My Nelson Lees were also borrowed eagerly by acclaim, by the Howard Baker Press. a number of my contemporaries. Sam Wisel — my None of this meant that, as a nine or ten year old, my closest boyhood friend, whose family lived around the appetite for school stories was frustrated. Denied Mag­ corner from us in Elsternwick — used to savour them in nets and Gems, I revisited in the shed at Elsternwick breaks between his afterschool Hebrew classes, and copies of another boys’ weekly — the Nelson Lee Library perhaps remembers them kindly in the kibbutz in Israel — whose crudely illustrated covers and small print had where the greater part of his adult life has been spent. previously been off-putting. The stock consisted of about 200 or so issues, dated roughly between 1924, The Old Boys’ Book Club when my father was fourteen years old, and his nine­ (Australasian Branch) teenth birthday in 1929. The author, Edwy Searles My taste for the story papers of my father’s generation Brooks, was less talented as a writer than Hamilton, but had the side effect of involving me for the first time had a much more colourful imagination. Originally a when I was sixteen in the establishment of a new organ­ straightforward detective in the mould of Sexton Blake, isation — the Old Boys' Book Club (Australasian Nelson Lee had been taken over by Brooks from his Branch). E. S. Turner’s Boys Will Be Boys— published in originator, Maxwell Scott, and re-invented as the school­ 1948 and widely reviewed — was the first comprehensive master detective for whom Brooks is now best remem­ account of how story-paper collecting was becoming a bered. Lee and his boy assistant. Nipper, were originally widespread hobby, with its own clubs and journals. required to take up residence al St Frank’s school on a Thanks to Turner, I was able to subscribe to Herbert temporary basis, in the course of an investigation. The Leckenby’s Collector’s Digest from York in England, Bill consequent combination of the two most popular gen­ Gander’s Story Paper Collector from Manitoba in Canada res of the day — school stories and detective stories — and the distinctively .American Reckless Ralph ’sDimeNovel was retained by popular demand. While pure detective Roundup. Leckenby put me in touch with Bill Martin, a stories still on occasion made their appearance in the London milkman with a profitable sideline in supplying Nelson Lee Library, the emphasis was on adventure, both story papers to a worldwide clientele, and also with the in and around the school and in often-exotic locations secretaries of the London, Midlands and Northern overseas. branches of the British Old Boys’ Book Club. Mean­ Touring parties of St Frank’s students encountered while, my local search for further copies of Chums and descendants of cut-off Roman legions in the Sahara the Nelson Lee Library— and for the Magnets and Gems I desert, forgotten settlers from Elizabethan England in had never actually seen — led me to the Reference the Antarctic, and the lost city of Eldorado — complete Room at the Melbourne Public Library. The librarian with a lake of molten gold — in a region of South to whom my inquiries were directed — Gordon Kirby America populated in part by dinosaurs. A typical holi­ — turned out to have a story-paper collection of his own, day series had the students searching for pearls on focused largely on weeklies for girls such as those fea­ Paradise Island in the Pacific, where their luxury yacht, turing Billy Bunter’s sister Bessie and the Cliff House the Wanderer, was seized by hijackers. The island was school. Gordon was also an aspiring playwright, who devastated by a hurricane, which carried out to sea one later had an adaptation of Zola’s Nana produced com­ of the students on the broken-off top of a palm tree. mercially by the Melbourne Theatre Company. Other Native pearl divers landed by the hijackers went berserk local collectors I met included Sheila Stevens and Tom and attacked the St Frank’s party in their camp. Dobson — respectively a PMG telephonist and a local

9 postmaster — Howard Sharpe who worked for the faded letters the word ‘Saddler’, alongside a lifesize Wright Stephenson pastoral agency and Don Wicks who wooden horsehead. ‘Saddler’ in due course became my was self-cmploved. perhaps as an accountant. A class­ name for the equally down-at-heel proprietor. At first mate of mine at Melbourne Grammar —Jim Merrells, the daily wait for my change of trams was passed simply now a QC— turned out unexpectedly to be a collector staring at such publications as found their way into of the and the Srxton Blake Library, which Saddler’s window. American comics — when available featured Blake and his boy assistant. Tinker. The upshot — were given pride of place, on a special display stand. of all this was a meeting at mv home on 24 August 1951, One Thursday, room had had to be made for a thicker where the Old Bev's Book Club (Australasian Branch) magazine, with untrimmed edges. The cover featured a was formed. Don Wk'ks became the president, and I was couple of bulbous red bipeds, directing something like the secretary. A regulxT meeting venue at the Victorian an old-fashioned movie camera at a man and woman Railwavs Institute was acquired, four issues of the Old dressed for tropical exploration and confined in a cage. Bovs' Book C2wi Awstorfrsarv Branch) Newsletter were pro­ It was the tenth anniversary issue of Thrilling Wonder duced and corresponding members from as far away as Stories, published five years earlier, in 1939. As in the case New Zealand and South Africa were recruited. The of the American comics, the price was 2/6. NeasbOcr lapsed when I stepped down as secretary in The effect on me was instantaneous. No glittering 1952, but the meetings continued. The episode fore­ prize in later life has ever beckoned me quite so shadowed in the diversity of the ages and occupations alluringly. I lived on tenterhooks for the next two days, of those involved and the manner of their coming hoping against hope that no other buyer would appear together the establishment of the Melbourne Science before my pocket money came due on Saturday morn­ Fiction Group with which it briefly overlapped. ing. In the event, no such disaster eventuated. The Earlier on, in the middle 1940s, I had been intro­ precious 2/6 passed across the counter to Saddler, and duced through the library at Grimwade House to Erich 1 walked back up High Street to the tram stop, engrossed Kastner’s Emil and the Detectives, Van Loon’s Lives by in John Taine’s ‘The Ultimate Catalyst '. The issue also Hendrik Van Loon, Arkadi Gaidar’s Timur and His Team contained ‘Dawn of Flame’ by Stanley Wcinbaum, ‘The — an exotic Soviet import — and the Biggies and Gimlet Man Without a World’ by two sons of Edgar Rice Bur­ books by Captain W. E. Johns. John Bunyan’s The Pil­ roughs, and one of the ‘Via’ series by Gordon A. Giles, grim’s Progress and Dickens’ David Copperfield, Oliver Twist which for years afterwards exercised a special grip on and Nicholas Nickleby were other favourites, which I read my imagination. As the weeks went by, further pre-war repeatedly. A tobacconist in the main street of Middle issues of Thrilling Wonder Stones made their appearance Brighton operated a commercial lending library, where in Saddler’s window, along with occasional copies of I borrowed thrillers by Leslie Charteris, John Creasey, Amazing, Startling Stones, Astoundingand Famous Fantastic Manning Coles and Denis Wheatley, and the Tarzan and Mysteries. I bought all that I could afford, and, where all John Carter novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. My father else failed, endured the exquisite agony of swapping had given me Rider Haggard’s The Ivory Child and Alan from the among the least favoured items already in my Quartermain, and there was a circuit of secondhand possession. bookshops — Bird's, Hanley’s, Franklin’s and Hall’s in The great McComas/Healy anthology Adventures in the city, Quaine’s in Commercial Road and Hall’s in Time and Space and Groff Conklin’s The Best of Science Chapel Street — which I visited regularly in search of Fiction were among my 1947 Christmas presents. such harder-lo-get Rider Haggard titles as Nada the Lily Newsagents, I discovered, stocked the pitifully thin Brit­ and Maiwa’s Revenge. At the same lime, I was on the ish reprint editions of Astounding and Unknown Worlds watch increasingly for the American comic books whose from which, unbeknown to Australian readers, the great colour print so largely set them aside from their drab serials of the 1940s — novels such as Sian, The Weapon wartime British counterparts. Comics such as Captain Makers, The Children of the Lens and a dozen or so more Marvel, Superman, Batman, Torch and Torro and Green of comparable quality — were consistently omitted. Lantern were highly prized at school, and jealously What remained was magical. For thirty and more years guarded by the relatively few students who had access to the memory has remained with me of savouring for the them through links with American servicemen or first lime stories such as Clifford Simak’s ‘City’ series; fathers whose businesses took them overseas. Such ‘Vintage Season’, ‘Mimsy Were the Borogroves’ and the copies as found their way into the secondhand shops ‘Baldy’ scries by Henry Kuttner; ‘Rescue Party’ by Ar­ were usually priced at 2/6, which was my entire week’s thur C. Clarke; ‘Child’s Play’ by William Tenn; ‘Tomor­ pocket money. row’s Children’ by Poul Anderson; ‘Hobbyist’ by Eric Frank Russell; ‘He Walked Around the Horses’ by H. First contact with science fiction Beam Piper; ‘In Hiding’ by Wilmar H. Shiras; and Mur­ It was in the course of window-shopping for American ray Leinster’s ‘The Strange Case of John Kingman’. It comics that I came in touch for the first time with became my strong conviction that the test of a good science fiction. The circumstances of the encounter piece of science fiction was whether the editor of were much the same as for Amis or Pohl. The year was Astounding, John W. Campbell Jr had a place for it in his 1944. I, loo, was nine years old. Travelling to school magazine. involved a change of trams at the junction of Balaclava By 1950,1 was buying my science fiction by mail from Road and High Street in St Kilda. Close by the tram slop, Britain. My suppliers were the Science Fantasy Service second-hand comics and magazines were sold by a (SFS) — later Milcross Book Service — in Liverpool, down-at-heel shop with a verandah which carried in and G. Ken Chapman of 23 Farnley Road, South Nor-

10

1 wood, in London. SFS did business on a strictly im­ days. Hockley in South Yarra I lend my books, and personal basis, through addressograph plates and he is now quite keen on getting a few Astounding. invoices on coloured duplicating paper. Ken by contrast The other chap is McLennan, East Brunswick, who was a bookseller of the old school, who corresponded has every mag bar 2 up to the ban in 1940 but hasn’t voluminously in the style subsequently immortalised by much since; he's a peculiar chap, very henpecked, Helene Hanff in her 84 Charing Cross Road. As with Frank and it is no pleasure seeing him so I haven’t dropped Doel of Hanffs Marks & Co, nothing was too much over for a couple of years. trouble for Ken, and I looked forward almost as much to his letters as to his parcels. Thirty years after our Don, Gordon McDonald and I had a happy evening dealings lapsed in the early 1960s, I wrote to him again together in Gordon’s home at 40 Lees Street, Mackin- for some item which I was finding hard to get, and non, browsing over a collection of Astounding^ which was received an immediate response which took up where nearly complete. Less happily, Don was shortly posted we had left off. We remained in touch until his death a back to Tasmania, where his energies were devoted year or so later. subsequently to the preparation of the mammoth Hand­ book of Science-Fiction — the precursor of Peter Nicholls’ Fellow fans Encyclopedia of Science Fiction — for which his place in fan An advertisement in one of my purchases introduced history is forever assured. Gordon continued to collect me to Ken Slater’s ‘Operation Fantast’ network. Slater magazines, but refused resolutely to involve himself in was a captain with the British Army on the Rhine. His fandom. My appetite for contact having once been purpose in life was putting science fiction readers in whetted, I hungered for more. touch with one another. He also supplied American It was by Roger again that I was put in touch with magazines and paperbacks to countries where the post­ Graham Stone, who was running the Australian Science war dollar shortage meant they were otherwise un­ Fiction Society (ASFS) from Box 61 in the Student available. Operation Fantast linked me with Roger Dard Union House at Sydney University. Graham was the in Perth, who was Slater’s Australian representative. most diligent Australian fan organiser of the day. His Roger turned out to be a fellow admirer of the Nelson ASFS was formed in 1951, as ‘a loose affair, without Lee Library and also of the Aldine Press Dick Turpin constitution, rules or planned activities beyond locating Library, which had been a favourite of my grandfather’s fans introducing them to each other and issuing a more generation. I loaned him rny Lets and was loaned in or less regular news sheet to keep them posted’. A typical return prewar issues of Astounding and Thrilling Wonder monthly mailing to members might include a copy of Stones. Roger was also my introduction to fanzines — Graham’s fanzine Stopgap, publicity material about magazines produced on an amateur basis by science forthcoming books from science fiction publishers such fiction enthusiasts, and devoted to reviews, gossip and as Gnome Press and Fantasy Press and other Australian creative writing — through his sporadically published fanzines such as Science Fiction Review and Vertical Hori­ Star Rover. His interests as a collector included the zons. The annual subscription was initially 2/6 and later American Weird Tales, which for some inscrutable rea­ 5/-. I was enrolled as member number 47, and attended son the Customs authorities had classified as a prohib­ the first postwar Australian science fiction convention, ited import. Roger's efforts to reverse or circumvent the which the ASFS organised in Sydney on 22 March 1952. ban earned him a blacklisting on the part of officialdom, In due course — on 28 August 1952 — I became the with the effect that his overseas parcels were routinely ASFS Local Secretary for Melbourne. Graham’s duty searched and items from them wherever possible con­ statement for the position read in part: fiscated. The persecution extended to the raiding of Roger’s home and seizure of parts of his collection. The To enrol new members of ASFS. Please forward aim plainly was to cower him into submission. Observing addresses promptly to me, when serial numbers will his difficulties and frustrations was a significant contri­ be allotted and membership cards issued. bution to my education in the need for constant vigi­ To collect all new and renewed subscriptions of 5/- lance against censorship and petty bureaucracy in all per year from members in the Melbourne metropoli­ their forms. tan area; to retain these moneys as a fund to defray Roger in his turn gave me the address of Don Tuck, expenses of office; to recommend cancellation of a 29-year-old Tasmanian fan who was boarding in expired memberships. Footscray. Don, Roger told me, had a collection of more To distribute to members in the metropolitan area than 1200 magazines, which was one of the biggest all ASFS publications. outside Britain and America. The first letter I received To make the benefits of the Society known to readers from him was written on the letterhead of the American of science fiction in general. National Fantasy Fan Federation. It described such To represent science fiction fandom in Melbourne meagre contact with other Melbourne fans as he had externally: that is, to keep me advised of its activities, been able to establish: to act as a spokesman and contact bureau operative in connection with external correspondence, and in I get a lot of interest out ofjust meeting one at a time general to assume responsibility for its public rela­ and yarning with them. I met Gordon McDonald tions as required. about six months ago and have a pow-wow with him every month or so now ... I know of two others of By December 1952, membership Australiawide stood the older mould — prewar but neither is active these at 132. Graham commented that that was ‘not bad

11 going’: ‘On a straight population basis a national organ­ tion of English penny dreadfuls — the Nelson Lee isation in the US would have 2600 at least; in the UK, Library — and I had a father in Shanghai, and then over 900’. My personal experiences with the ASFS were in Hong Kong, who supplied me with American less than uniformly satisfactory, through nobody’s fault comics. We arranged a swap, and matters progressed but my own. My attendance at the 1952 convention had satis- factorily until the Customs began to clamp to be cut short when I left my wallet in a taxi and had down on the dreadful influx of corrupting literature only my small change to tide me over until I could threatening to engulf our youth in a decadent tide scramble on to the earliest possible return flight for of Nyokas and Captain Marvels, and Batmen, and Melbourne. My appointment as Local Secretary for Shecnas, and Heaps, and Airboys, and Stu Taylors, Melbourne was resigned on 19 September 1953, follow­ and Dr Sivanas, and Mr Mxyztplks, and etc. Nelson ing sustained — and justified — complaints from Gra­ Lees dwindled as did the heady wonders of Buck ham that my studies and other activities were causing Rogers in Fulcolour. me to devote insufficient time to the job. Trust Race, though. Before you could say Meanwhile, in August 1951, a middle-aged school­ SHAZAM! twice he had discovered a tiny place, quite teacher named Bob McCubbin struck up a conversation near school and the St Kilda Junction, which had a with me while we were browsing side by side over the supply, small it is true, but a supply nonetheless, of Franklin Lending Library’s stock of pre-war science the forbidden fruits. Life was again livable. Well, fiction magazines in the Eastern Market, now long since Race was in the class below me at school, and I soon replaced by the Southern Cross Hotel. As recalled by had to leave Grimwade House to enter the ‘Big Lee Harding, an aspiring professional photographer at School'. St Kilda Junction was out of bounds for a the time, who has since become a notable science fiction boarder, and I no longer had the pocket money I had writer: been accustomed to, so I stopped frequenting the shop. But not Race. Old Man Franklin kept a booming paperback and About 18 months later, I was taken away from marriage-manual business. At the rear of his shop, school on a whim of my father’s and whirled around he also ran the largest lending library in the city. the world to the East and England for a year, to Some time prior to 1952 he bought up a lol of absorb God knows what, and when I returned Race pre-war pulps from somewhere and had them indi­ and I were in the same classes together. He re­ vidually bound, and opened a special SF section of introduced me to the little shop, this time not for the said library. The joining fee was a whopper, and comics, but for a far more insidious poison, one indicated the importance placed upon ‘American which still courses through my veins — science fic­ Magazines’ in those days: £2/10/0 as against 10/6 tion. Astounding, Planet, Super Science. . . ah! even the for regular library membership. In those dry days British titles were hued with wonder, drenched in the before the 1959 deluge (when most publishers must promise of interplanetary orgies. Life was again have dumped in Australia the accumulated backlog worth living. I remember distinctly the first true SF of five years publishing), dozens and dozens of eager magazine I ever read — a present from Race — fans must have found their way to Franklin’s and Galaxy for May 1951, with ‘The Wind Between the cavorted happily amongst the hundreds of volumes Worlds’ by Lester Del Rey, ‘Tyrann’ by Asimov, to be had ... I can remember weekends — and ‘Goodnight Mr James’ by Simak, plus many others. I WHAT weekends! — struggling home on a tram have never been the same since. It would also have loaded up with five or six hardcover Startling? or been Race who introduced me to Franklin’s library Thrilling Wonders. — I doubt if I would have found it myself — and I know he pul me on to Slater, Chapman, and the My monthly copies of Astounding were passed to me other big sellers of the sluff. across the counter at the McGill’s newsagency in Eliza­ beth Street by a shop assistant who ultimately intro­ Graham Slone also passed on my name to Lee — or, duced himself as Mervyn Binns. Through Graham as he was then known, Leo — Harding. Lee’s letter Slone, I renewed acquaintances with Dickjenssen, a introducing himself to me in April 1952 read in part: student at the school I had just left, who subsequently credited me with having introduced him to the Nelson I’m fifteen years of old age, a stf fan for five and an Lee Library, American comics and science fiction. Dick’s intelligent one for two. Get what I mean? I know the given name was more formally ‘Ditmar’, and it was as difference between a Bradbury and a Kuttner. I know ‘Dilmars’ that Australia’s annual science fiction awards my pen names too . . . At the moment I’m just a — counterparts of the American ‘Hugo’ and ‘Nebula’ newcomer to Fandom, but in three months I’ve awards — were ultimately introduced. A memoir of the (1) joined Ken Slater’s ‘Operation Fantast’, (2) sub­ limes to which he has contributed reads in pari: scribed to Slone’s Stopgap, etc., (3) become a mem­ ber of the Australian Science Fiction Society, (4) Il was the ubiquitous Race Thorson Mathews who subscribed to Woornera, (5) have made arrangements first seduced me into the delights of the never-never to get good US magazines regularly, and all the world of science fiction, just as earlier, much earlier, British dittoes, except of course the four Spencer he had corrupted my mind with the garish, and mags (ughl), (7) (Am I boring you?) Stopped getting much-sought after publications known as (hush) Thrills Inc. (again, ughl), made contact with book­ American comics. Race, I recall, had a large collec- sellers Carnell and Chapman, (9) (Phew!) Begun my

12 The founders: Some of the people who were there at the beginning of the Melbourne Science Fiction Group (which became the Melbourne Science Fiction Club): Back row: Mervyn Binns, Dick Jenssen. Front row: Bob McCubbin, A. Bertram Chandler, Race Mathews. (Photographer: Lee Harding. A time exposure, using an old plate camera and existing light.)

career of collecting rejection slips from stf maga­ upon carpets like a tarantula. We chatted of things zines, under the guidance of Roger Dard. SFictional for a few hours, and I left with a vague promise that I would attend a fannish gathering he Recalling our first meeting years later, he wrote: had planned at his home in a few weeks time — this was to be the unofficial inaugural meeting of what I cleaned myself up one Sunday and went — in became known as the Melbourne Science Fiction suit and collar and tie on an exceedingly warm sum­ Group. mer’s day — to meet Mr Mathews. Race was sitting on the front lawn when I arrived, engrossed in ‘The Lee and I became good friends. This did not mean Onslaught from Rigel' in Wonder Stories Annual, and that we were uncritical of one another. When I failed to after a rather un- certain handshake was exchanged, answer his letters regularly enough or at acceptable he took off his dark glasses and escorted me inside. length, he remonstrated: He was a remarkably baby-faced youth of eighteen, long and lean and lanky, with legs that sprawled I’ve just about had it. If you don’t want your books

13 back, okay. If you don’t want to correspond with me, in Australia and there will always be a big and important okay again, but I still think its a dirty show. There’s place for him but he seems to be obsessed with a queer plenty of important fans who don’t think its going idea of making out that he is a “big name fan" and other out of their way to write to me regularly — Dard, fansjust don't exist’. ‘It is believed’, wrote David Cohen Stone, Haddon, Solnsteff, Slater, Camell and the at a later stage in the protracted controversy, ‘that rest. Tell me, how important arc you? Stone—Molesworth would like to get their claws on the Library, but from what my spies tell me, some people A week later peace was restored. A further letter from would sooner burn it all up first’: Lee commenced: Do you know that there is more hate for these two I’m a cad! I’m a bounder. I’m ungrateful. I’m a among the Futurians than there is among all the rest Yank. I’m a no-hoper . . . Please, tear up or atomise put together? They were barred from the Futurian that letter I wrote you. I’ve buried yours! committees in the end and told that if they put up for positions they would be voted out. Lee was not alone in bringing a certain frenzy to every­ thing he did. zXll our activities were coloured by the Unsurprisingly, the library issue was seen by Graham frenetic quality which prompted Sam Moskowitz to title as involving misconceptions which were in part ‘false­ his history of early American fandom The Immortal Storm. hoods deliberately spread’. The situation in reality was The sheer frustration of dealing with fellow fans that the protagonists were friendly correspondents and sometimes drove to distraction those who were at heart associates with fans in other states on an individual basis, serious-minded organisers. In December 1951, Graham but competitive and combative in the extreme with one Stone poured out his feelings in a letter to me which another in the bearpit of Sydney fan politics. An attempt read in part: at conciliation on my part was rejected out of hand by Graham. ‘I don't know’, he wrote, ‘what this reconcili­ There can be no doubt that many readers of science ation line is in aid of. Why should I try to cultivate the fiction are inadequate individuals — what used to be favour of fandom’s disruptive elements?’ called 'escapists’, although the tenn is unsatisfactory. They make up for their defects in ordinary life by The Melbourne Science Fiction Group building themselves up in their own estimation. And Melbourne tackled matters in a different spirit. The five you can’t think of yourself as superman very effec­ of us — Bob McCubbin, Mervyn Binns, Dick Jenssen, tively if you admit others as your equals. Lee Harding and myself — made up the core of the Melbourne Science Fiction Group. The inaugural meet­ Graham continued: ing of the MSFG took place in the living room o! my home in Hampton on 9 May 1952. Lee records the Many fans, while living more or less well-adjusted occasion as haring been instigated by ‘a sort of collabo­ lives and not tending to paranoid superiority, are ration between Bob McCubbin and Race Mathews'. In extreme intellectual snobs; ever critical of others, Dick’s characteristically tongue-in-cheek view: finding faults which might well be over-looked and so on . . . such fans are likely to adopt a reserved Race, I’m sure, was the guiding light in the founda­ attitude to other fans, which will be reinforced by tion of the Melbourne Science Fiction Group, for it inspection of escapists, who are usually painfully was he who brought together those who would con­ obvious second-raters. stitute its nucleus. (If it seems remarkable that a 16-year-old could accomplish this — that is, the for­ It may well be that these attitudes explain why the affairs mation of the club, not the seduction to science of Sydney fans were conducted frequently in an atmo­ fiction of a youth of but 15 tender years (me) — it sphere reminiscent of the Wars of the Roses. must be remembered that Race was a boy of remark­ A representative rift in the ranks of Sydney fandom able precocity. He always seemed old to me — an concerned the Futurian Society of Sydney library. Olympian of wisdom. Baby-faced he was, Lee, but Graham supposed the library to be vested in a trust of rather in the manner I’ve always imagined Odd John which he was a member, and resigned on the grounds would be). that the rules had been being broken since its inception, and breaches were continuing to occur. Others no less Turning to the inaugural meeting, Dick continued: familiar with the facts of the matter adopted an opposite interpretation. The merits of the argument were less The fen of Melbourne began to meet in each important than the heal and vituperation which it gen­ other’s houses sometime in 1951, I believe, and the erated, or the fact that the effectiveness of the library first I attended was at Race’s. That bus trip from the was compromised throughout and beyond the duration station, Middle Brighton, was a focal point of space­ of the dispute. Graham’s critics — notably Arthur Flad­ time, for on my journey I met Bob McCubbin. We don, David Cohen and Bill Veney — attributed the were, as I recall, the only two on the vehicle and fracas to an excess of ambition on Graham’s part, while somehow as these things happen, began to talk and the Slone camp — notably Graham and Vol Molesworth discuss our common passion. I soon discovered, how­ — saw similar flaws as characterising the critics. ‘Gra­ ever, that Bob had many another passion, and by the ham’, Bill Veney wrote, ‘has done a lol to help fandom time we had reached Race’s I had learned that Japa-

14 ncse women had beautiful (the word conveys most what a queen was, but if she had said “poofters” I should inadequately Bob’s look of remembered joy) purple have caught her meaning instantly’. Bob McCubbin was nipples, firm and delightful to touch, hold and insistent that ‘Extroverts and introverts we may be, but squeeze. My mind had been opened up to whole new perverts never’. Given that the membership of the worlds, for Bob had been loquacious on subjects MSFG at that stage was exclusively male, its interest for whose delicacy forbids my mentioning them here ... Vai’s clientele is unlikely to have been other than minu­ scule. Nevertheless, future meetings were held in the Bob’s tendency to hold forth at length at the drop of austerely asexual surroundings of the basement room the proverbial hat on the sexual attributes of women in of the Latrobe Street Manchester United Order of Japan — where he had served as an Army Education Oddfellows (MUOOF) hall, in comforting proximity to Officer with the occupying forces — was to assume the Russell Street police headquarters. legendary status in fan circles. Exposed to it — albeit in A letter of 17 December 1952 over the signature of modified form — on the occasion of his first visit to my the Grand Secretary and Past Grand Master of the home shortly after our initial encounter in Franklin’s, MUOOF — a Mr G. L. Coulter — confirmed fortnightly my parents concluded that he was a paedophile, with bookings throughout 1953, at a nightly cost of 12/6. designs on my body, and further meetings with him were According to Lee: for a time forbidden. In fact, Bob's proclivities were in my experience exclusively heterosexual and theoretical. We had the basement room and the use of a cup­ Asked on one occasion how she felt about science fic­ board for the library in the hall outside. Hardly tion, his wife replied that it kept him away from chasing convivial, but in those days we weren’t particularly other women. If at that stage of his life he harboured interested in the comforts of the home. Despite the any active aspiration to stray — as opposed to relishing endeavours of the more voracious fans — myself past episodes in retrospect — it remained a well-kept included — the Group staunchly resisted any secret. attempt to ‘organise’ itself in anyway, and still man­ ages to do so until this day. Bob McCubbin was the By Lee's account, the inaugural meeting was ‘a great self-elected Chairman at all times, but there were no success’: organised evenings and no minutes were kept. We were just a bunch of guys getting together and swap­ Many of the oldtimcrs turned up: Bob McCubbin was ping yarns — and trading a few magazines at the there, and I'm pretty sure Marshal McLennan and same time. Wog Hockley were, too. From then on the group held monthly meetings at members' houses in rota­ A further activity was arranging to have magazines tion — those members who had decent homes and bound professionally by Don Latimer, whose family had whose wives/parents et al. were tolerant enough to a binding business. Although Don’s bindings in many allow the onslaught of eighteen to twenty fans plus instances were works of art, the niceties of collecting supper afterwards. were neglected sometimes by his workmates. My set of the Arkham Sampler was returned to me resplendent in Lee had missed out on the inaugural meeting as he three full leather volumes, but with the original maga­ did on those immediately following it because his work zine covers carefully removed. Such were the passions as a photographer was constantly taking him to country of the day that, prior to Don’s arrival on the MSFG areas remote from Melbourne. Vol Molesworth’s A His­ scene, I had had magazines such as my set of Famous tory of Australian Fandom 1935-1963 adds to the list of Fantastic Mysteries and my British Reprint Edition copies those present Gordon Kirby from the OBBC. The over­ of Unknown Worlds bound for me by a fan in Wales. Bob lap between story-paper collecting and fandom was McCubbin as I recall followed a policy of haring Don illustrated again when Jack Murtagh —an OBBC mem­ bind everything he owned. Personalised bookplates by ber from New Zealand, and the owner of one of the professional SF illustrators such as those whose work largest story-paper collections in the world, the largest featured regularly in Astounding were available from collection of cigarette cards outside Britain and New overseas suppliers, but MSFG members preferred the Zealand’s largest collection of movie memorabilia — local product from Keith Maclelland, a fellow fan and attended the fourth Sydney SF Convention. talented commercial artist. The content of some collec­ Melbourne exemplified the unfractious face of Aus­ tions seemed at times to be secondary in the eyes of their tralian fandom. Meetings revolved around talk, letters, owners to their often opulent appearances. barter and chess. Puritanism too was pervasive. At a MSFG members went together at times to such SF relatively early stage — following a night when 19 fans films as were screened commercially, but that the MSFG packed into the modest living room of Bob’s house in might arrange screenings of its own had as yet not Auburn — proceedings transferred to a Swanston Street occurred to us. Remo Parlanti and Tony Santos became cafe called Vai’s. Shock and horror prevailed when Vai’s the first MSFG members who reflected in name at least turned out to be a meeting place for some of the more the changing ethnic composition of Australian society. courageous lesbians of the day, whose coming-out from A less welcome recruit was Gordon Walkenden, who the closet was just getting underway. Dick has recalled sold me my first LP records — the ‘Forest Murmurs’ being taken aside by his family’s landlady and warned from Siegfreid and the Rienzi overture — and shortly in a conspiratorial whisper 'Be careful, Dick, they’re a moved to Adelaide. A subsequent letter from a leading bunch of queens’. His account continued ‘I didn’t know Adelaide fan of the day — a Mrs Joyce — to Graham

15 Stone read in part: way, most of my stuff was rejected.

Gordon Walkenden of Melbourne now lives at 153 It was Lee’s drcam that Perhaps, the publication for South Terrace, Adelaide, and oh! how we all wish he which he was primarily responsible, would live up to its was back in Melbourne! He has a voice like a foghorn subtitle, as ‘The International Magazine of Fantasy and and loves to hear it raised in song. In the last three Science Fiction’. I hoped to make my Bacchanalia an meetings we have had him to the point that, if he antipodean counterpart for two outstanding American keeps it up the others will either gang up on him or fanzines, Nekromantikon and Fanscient, which I had stop coming. Never have I seen such a pill! I even accepted on loan from Graham Stone, unwarily allowed told him to shut up, a thing I didn’t think I was Kevin Whelahan to borrow from me and — to Graham’s capable of saying to a guest, and he continued rage and my enduring shame — never been able to merrily on! induce Kevin to return. Inevitably, reality in the case of both Lee's first issue and my own fell short by far of our The Vai’s episode illustrated a further quirk of Aus­ aspirations. ‘At the time’ Lee has recorded, ‘I was dis­ tralian fandom. Women were not only largely absent mally disappointed’. He to his great credit persisted. An from our activities but mostly unsought. When Rose­ incomparably more polished Perhaps?. — and ultimately mary Simmons applied for membership of the Futurian a Perhaps 3 — appeared, laying in part the foundations Society of Sydney in 1952, her application was rejected for his success as a professional writer. My enthusiasm on the grounds that, in Vol Molesworth’s words: * . . . waned, and the Bacchanalia? which finally came out was the admission of women had caused trouble in the the work of a new editor. AFPA’s outstanding success pre-war days of the club’. The poet Lex Banning inter­ story turned out ironically to be the publication in which vened with the query ‘Are we Fulurians or arc we Vic­ fewest hopes and least foresight had been invested. torians?’ but the Society’s all-male membership went Etherlinc— a newszine produced largely on a collective ahead to vote down Ms Simmons by a two-thirds major­ basis — established what may well have been a record ity. Extensive organisation was required to reverse the for the fan publishing circles of the day, by appearing decision at a subsequent meeting and dispel as much as regularly at fortnightly intervals for 100 issues, from possible the richly merited ignominy. Melbourne's first 1953 until 1958. woman member — Betty Garbutt — was accompanied Well before the appearance of Bacchanalia 2 in 1956, to her first meeting by her sister, as a chaperon or source my active involvement in fandom had ceased. My court­ of moral support. The sister, to the best of my recollec­ ship of my future wife had been funded largely by the tion, did not reappear. Betty remained the sole repre­ selling-off of the greater part of my science-fiction col­ sentative of her sex until I began bringing along Jill lection at successive MSFG meetings over the best part McKeown, to whom I shortly became engaged. of a two-year period. I was reading much more widely. The Melbourne Grammar library' and Parliamentary Amateur Fantasy Publications Society had already fanned my long-standing interest in of Australia politics, and the lecturers at Toorak Teachers’ College The creative side of the MSFG was instigated by Lee and were further developing my liking for music and Dick. ‘We’, Lee told Dick in 1952, ‘must put out a theatre. My three months national sendee training in fanzine.’ What resulted after lengthy gestation was not early 1954 and my marriage two years later were circuit­ one fanzine but five, titled respectively Perhaps, Baccha­ breakers, marking the point where I moved on irrevo­ nalia, Etherlinc, Question Mark and Antipodes. The vehicle cably from the world of science fiction to the for all this activity was Amateur Fantasy Publications of preoccupations which subsequently shaped my life. The Australia (AFPA), which owned the group’s stencils, ties which held together our little circle of friends were paper and ink, and in due course — after extensive likewise loosening. Bob McCubbin died before his time, experimentation with less satisfactory devices — had the while Dick Jenssen was detached ultimately by the de­ carriage of its purchase of a Roneo 500 duplicator. The mands of teaching and research in the Science Faculty initial membership of AFPA was Lee, Dick and Mervyn at Melbourne University. It remained for Lee Harding Binns. I was a latecomer, and two new arrivals in the to become the author of a series of outstanding science MSFG, Ian Crozier and Kevin Whclahan, joined later fiction novels which includes — to dale — Displaced again. By Dick’s account: Person and Future Sanctuary, and for Mervyn Binns to establish — and, sadly, later close down — Melbourne’s Leo not only provided the push, but he did most of Space Age Bookshop. Meanwhile, the MSFG has en­ the work. He wrote letters, contacted people, sug­ dured, in forms re-invented by successive generations of gested story ideas and cover illustrations, solved lay­ fans to serve their changing emphases, and the expand­ out problems, told Mervyn when to turn the ing opportunities held out to them by new technologies. duplicator handle, and in short was the driving force Along with many like us, virtually in every country on (spiritual) behind Perhaps. Mervyn Binns was the earth, we remain endebled deeply to science fiction for driving force (material): he found us a duplicator, the pleasures to which it has introduced us, the endur­ fixed it when it went wrong, forced it into action and ing friendships it has enabled us to establish and the was, in short, indefatigible on the production side. additional edge which it has imparted to our curiosity, I? I obeyed orders, and produced all the little fillers imagination and pursuit of ideas. designed to round out those big blank spaces between the highpowered stories and articles. Any- — Race Mathews, 1994

16 This article began innocently enough. In an ANZAPA mailing comment in 1993, SALLY YEOLAND wrote: ‘The following is at last a response to Bruce’s mailing comment that he’d like to hear about my life before I met John Bangsund.’ So she wrote about her life before meeting John. In following issues she also wrote about life after meeting John, and their early years together, quoting large sections of John’s own accounts of the same years. In turn, this has become the story of all of us who were around at the time (mid-1970s).

SALLY AND JOHN: THE EARLY YEARS

by SALLY YEOLAND, with large sections of the writing of JOHN BANGSUND

1

Editor’s note: -arx I hope I can make a satisfactory separation between Sally’s contributions and John’s: o Sally's contributions are in 9 pt Bookman, o John's contributions are in 8 pt Baskerville, like this. ■J Life before I met John

In January 1970 I went to Canberra, just to visit, as my parents thought. I had other ideas. Having bombed out in my first year exams at Uni in Hobart in 1969. I thought of joining the public service and following in my brother's footsteps so to speak. He and his wife had moved to Canberra in 1966 and liked the lifestyle there very much. I had been promising to go up and visit them but had never quite got around to it. Sally Yeoland in the early 1970s. My only other interstate trip prior to this had been a visit to Melbourne in December 1964 and January 1965.1 had a great-aunt Dot. my mother's aunt, living at Mt Eliza with her husband, and all I suppose this was really a trial run for finally her grownup children and their families living leaving home in 1970 and going to Canberra. I within half a mile or so of her house. I went to stay needed to get away from Hobart. Don't misunder­ with her for a week, knowing that I would get on stand me though. Hobart and Tasmania are beau­ with her, as she and Uncle Warwick had visited tiful places and whenever I go back there for a Hobart many times in the past. It was a tremendous visit, usually once a year, I appreciate the beauty holiday and I enjoyed my second cousins' (all ten of of the place all over again. But I found it very them) company so much that I didn't want to go provincial, rather like a country town, where back. The week extended to four, by which time I everyone knows everyone, etc. This had a very' had had several phone calls from my parents asking claustrophobic effect, because great emphasis when I might be coming homel was put on not who you were, but rather who your

17 parents were and what they did for a living. My Dylan fan and at the time had every single one of father was a motor mechanic and had his own his records, even some bootlegs as I recall. I business in Hobart. This was not considered to suppose I was doing all the usual things that be an acceptable occupation in some social cir­ teenagers did in those days and rebelling against cles, which really annoyed me at the time. The established values. My first real boyfriend in 1966 expectation, not so much by my parents, but my and 1967 was Benedict Leung, a friend of one of peers and their parents, was that I should remain my cousins. Ben was a Hong Kong student who a •nice* girl, be a member of the Liberal Party and had decided to stay in Hobart when he finished marry the right sort of bloke and settle down in his studies. That was a fairly courageous thing for the suburbs and have two or three children. Well, him to do in those days, as Hobart mainly had firstly I have never been a Liberal voter, and migrants who had migrated post World War II secondly I didn't particularly want to get married, with mainly Anglo-Saxon or European back­ and thirdly I wasn’t keen about having children, grounds. There were a few Asian overseas stu­ so I failed on three out of three! dents, but not many compared to the mainland. In 1967 I was liberated when I spent my last At the beginning of 1967 I had to do the right thing year of school at Hobart Matriculation College, and be a debutante at Collegiate, my old school. which was co-ed, and 1 discovered boys! I should I broke the rules by asking Ben to be my partner, say I had discovered them a few years earlier, but which he graciously accepted. By breaking the they weren’t always in close proximity. Peter rules I mean that I was the first person to have a Pierce and Stephen Alomes were in my class. They partner who did not have an Anglo-Saxon back­ were easily the brightest students and both went ground. This raised a few eyebrows at the time, on to do Arts at Uni, with high distinctions in but everything went fairly smoothly. I think Ben everything. I ran into Stephen a few years ago at and I started to part ways in 1967, when I became Deakin Uni where he is lecturing in politics. I a lot more aware of what I wanted out of life. I was came across Peter last year when he addressed a becoming much more interested in politics. He Society of Editors meeting. He lectures in English wanted to get married etc. That was about the last at Monash Uni. We had probably last seen each thing that I wanted to do at that time, which was other in 1969, so it was interesting to catch up on probably very sensible in retrospect, as 1 was still the years in between. very naive and had little experience of the world. I also met Barbara Lonergan at Hobart Matric Also, I got my driving licence in 1967 which and then got to know her family. Her father was gave me a great deal of freedom. As my parents director of the ABC in Hobart. The family had lived out of the city where there were only a couple moved from Melbourne to Hobart in 1965, where of buses a day to the city, my father had always Barbara's mother was originally from. They were had to give me a lift to various places. This now Labor voters. Believe it or not, they were the first meant I could choose to stay the night with my people that I became friends with who were not paternal grandmother, who lived in a lovely old Liberal voters. All my relatives and friends at that place in Sandy Bay, just down the road from time were Liberal voters, including my brother. I where my father worked. I had always got on had even been to a Young Liberals meeting at this particularly well with her. She was the family time. Barbara’s mother Margaret, had a very laid- member who was absolutely mad about cats and back approach to life, almost bohemian in today’s usually had half a dozen or so at a time. She was terms. Housework wasn’t a priority for her! I think very civilised and let them have the run of the she was a feminist before the word was invented. house, including them sleeping on the ends of Although she didn’t drink or smoke, she didn't beds etc. so I loved staying there. She was also a mind people who did, and their house was a brilliant gardener, something that I have not in­ wonderful place for all sorts of people dropping in. herited. I was driving an Austin A40 at the time I mention all these things, not because I have and was so poor I used to collect cordial bottles anything against drinking etc, but it was all so so I could collect the refunds and buy petrol, different from my parents. My father was a very sometimes only 50 cents worth. social person, but my mother was not. When In 1968 I spent a year at teachers’ college and Margaret’s husband died, Margaret came back to started to participate in anti-Victnam marches Melbourne and lived with, then more recently etc. I decided at the end of 1968 that I didn’t really married, John Hepworth. I still see Barbara and want to teach primary school children, which is her family when I go to Hobart and most years go what the course was for, and I didn't want to be to Margaret and John's Twelfth Night party. They on a bond with the Education Department for four had a Suicide party a couple of months ago which years after I had finished the two-year course. The I didn’t get to. No, the pre-requisite is not to deal was that for every year you spent studying commit suicide! free of charge you had to pay back by working two So meeting Barbara and her family was the years for the Education Department. I preferred beginning of things changing for me. She was a to change courses at the end of 1968 and go to

18 Uni to get an Arts degree then a Dip. Ed. and teach night, who was babysitting at a house down secondary school students. I had waist-length Sandy Bay. It had been pouring with rain and she hair at this stage, wore jeans for the first time and was visiting a house in Lower Sandy Bay. up on bare feet. This continued through 1969, much to a hill. There was a dirt road up to the place. As I the despair of my father! was slowly driving up the hill, the car started to I was reminded of these days in January 1991 slide off the road and ended up in a very deep when I attended a service at St Paul’s Cathedral ditch. There were two problems involved. I had to (Anglican) two days before the UN deadline re the get the car out of there, but it was also blocking Gulf War was up. There were about 2000 people the road and stopping the people going out for the there, all of very different religious persuasions. evening, who my friend was babysitting for! We An Imam, a Rabbi, an Anglican Archbishop, a ended up having to get a tow truck to get the car Catholic Archbishop and a Uniting Church min­ out. The next day when I finally went home, my ister all addressed the congregation and offered parents took the news of my exam results fairly prayers for peace. It was a very moving experience calmly. My father was more upset at me calling a reminiscent of the days of the anti-Vietnam towtruck, as he could have towed me out of there demonstrations and gatherings. The difference for nothing! was that these days I put a much greater value I wasn’t sure what my future was at that stage on human life than I did then. and how or at what I was going to earn a living. I I was becoming a lefty. I went to meetings at saw little point in going back to Uni and I didn’t Uni. where most of my friends were in 1968 and want to be a financial drain on my parents for 1969, for the ALP. I went to many latenight ses­ another year or so. I had been getting part-time sions of folk music and jazz. I discovered alcohol jobs during holiday periods for the previous few and cigarettes. The only thing my father and I ever years. 'Phis started off as helping in the local shop, disagreed on was politics. He could not under­ then I progressed to fruitpacking at Jones’ at the stand why I did not support Australia and the US wharf in Hobart. I particularly recall the local in the Vietnam war and why I wasn’t a Liberal shop as I remember turning up for work in voter. I remember very clearly writing a very November 1963 and being told of Kennedy’s emotional piece for an assignment in 1969, on assassination. I became quite an expert at pack­ whether there was any such thing as a just weir, ing cool-store apples and eventually when I got which at the time I believed there wasn’t, a view I my driver’s licence, I did deliveries to various still hold very firmly. I started reading Che shops and supermarkets. Guevara, Huxley, Orwell and others. I had started I went to Canberra just after Christmas 1969 to change out of the mould and the world my and sat a public service selection test at the end parents had grown up in. The move to Canberra of January 1970. I was offered a choice of depart­ seemed very appropriate then and now in retro­ ments and chose Immigration, because I thought spect. it might lead to overseas travel later on. I lived I made the mistake of moving out of home in with my brother Graeme and sister-in-law Helen the middle of 1969 to a cottage at the back of a in their Braddon flat for several months, until I lovely old house in Sandy Bay. Manresa, which could get hostel accommodation. For those of you had been built in the early 1800s. The cottage who don’t know Canberra, presumably because used to be for the servants and I shared it with of the large public service population, special three other girls I had been at Collegiate with. I hostels were started up to house public servants, say it was a mistake, because up till then I had who are mostly from interstate. The standard of been getting good marks at Uni. But I then dis­ accommodation varied from hostel to hostel. I covered a social life which I hadn’t previously chose Lawley House, which boasted a fairly high experienced and study took second place. I still standard, with meals included. The hostel was managed to hand in assignments on time, but presumably built just after World War II. The they were usually done at the last minute, espe­ rooms were very comfortable and the residents cially English. I can remember writing an essay quite reasonable. I remember paying something on George Herbert's poetry and I hadn't even read like $49 a fortnight for full board when I first any of it! This all came to a crunch at the end of moved in there and this included three meals a the year when I only passed Australian History day. I think I was earning about $81 a fortnight and just failed the other subjects, English, Politics at the time, so $49 seemed a lot of money. I moved and Ancient Civilisations. I can recall having a there at the end of April 1970 as Helen was very look at the notice board where the students could pregnant at the time and I felt it was time to move look up their results and getting a sinking feeling out and be independent. as I read them. My previous attempt at this was on 24 April, I wasn’t surprised, but my concern was how I when I moved into Barton House, not one of the was going to tell my parents! I didn’t tell them better establishments. A friend from work lived straight away. I went to visit a friend that Friday there, but she was ten years older than me and a

19 lot more world wise. I’ll talk about Robyn Price of Music, Dr Zhivago and other similar stuff. The later on. Graeme dropped me off at Barton House exception to this was The War Game, which I saw late in the afternoon. Unlike Lawley, Barton had in the late 60s. It had a profound effect on me at share accommodation. This seemed OK as the time and I decided then that I’m not sure that Graeme and I had met the other female 1 would I would want to be a survivor after a nuclear war. be sharing a room with and she seemed all right. Robyn introduced me to Bergman. Visconti and I went downstairs and had a meal and then many other directors of foreign films who I had watched TV in the community lounge room. When never heard of. In 1970 I saw Easy Rider. Butch I went upstairs later in the evening, I noticed that Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Five Easy Pieces I wasn’t just sharing with the other female, but and Death In Venice. Death in Venice was my with her boyfriend as well. I can’t recall whether introduction to Mahler. I found it an absolutely they were in bed or not at this stage. This didn’t amazing film and I have always been a great fan particularly bother me as I was pretty tired so 1 of Dirk Bogarde. went to bed and straight to sleep. I was woken up I had an interest in classical music as I had by some talking later in the night about 1.00 a.m. learnt to play the piano at school and most of the or so. The female’s boyfriend and his bikie mates music I played was classical. Unfortunately for wanted to see if I wanted to have some fun. I think my music teacher. I had initially learnt to play by I told them politely to bugger off as I wanted to go ear, which she was forever telling me was a to sleep, which amazingly they did! Maybe my disadvantage to any serious study 1 might have naivety at that stage wasn’t a bad thing. The next intended. I concentrated on Beethoven. Chopin, day Graeme picked me up to attend the Anzac Day Schumann and Debussy. When I first learnt the service at the War Memorial. He asked me how piano formally. 1 found the elderly Anglican nun the accommodation was. and I remember clearly who taught me had a novel way of letting me know sitting in the back of his car, relating what had when I had made a mistake, by rapping me on the happened to Helen and Graeme in the front. He fingers with a ruler, a practice which would not seemed slightly stunned. Later, after the sendee, be acceptable today, I hope! I had belonged to he confronted the manager of Barton about the various choral groups at school and Uni. I recall sharing facilities. Needless to say, I didn’t get to performing in Carl Orffs Carmina Burana, The spend another night at Barton! Messiah, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Vivaldi’s 1 spent nine months at Lawley in rather better Gloria at the Hobart Town Hall in the late 60s. I circumstances. The good thing about hostel life had grown up with a cousin who loved Gilbert and was that 1 made lots of friends and had a really Sullivan and delighted in playing records to me at good time socialising. Most of the people I was every opportunity. However I also had a particular working with also lived in hostels, so there was a fondness for jazz and folk music, not so much trad tendency to socialise a lot more with workmates jazz, but more in the style of Brubeck. Monk and out of working hours. I met Robyn Price on my Davis. My record collection was very meagre and first day at work at Immigration, 13 April 1970, included Streisand. Peter Paul and Mary, Glen my twenty-first birthday. She gave me a lift back Miller. Rossini and a couple of other classical to my brother’s house at Aranda in her little mini records. and asked me if I had heard of Tolkien and Lord Robyn also introduced me to Cordon Bleu of the Rings. No, I said, and she promptly handed cooking, the Folio Society and Le Creuset cook­ me a paperback copy of The Lord of the Rings and ware. although not in that order! Robyn was doing said I could borrow it for a while. This was the some study at the ANU and I recall sitting in on beginning of a very interesting friendship. My only some of Manning Clark's lectures in Australian regret now is that when Robyn went overseas in history, which I enjoyed very much. I had been 1976 to England, we lost touch. Several years ago, fortunate at Uni in Hobart to have James McAuley I remembered that she was supered out of the as a lecturer in English. I read Germaine Greer's public service, so that presumably the Super­ The Female Eunuch in 1970. Portnoy's Complaint, annuation Board in Canberra might still be pay­ and Richard Neville's Playpower, which actually ing her super and might know where she was. I described in detail how to grow marijuana. I found rang them, and amazingly they not only told me both Greer and Neville amazing. They offered she was still in England, but gave me her address. alternatives which I never knew existed. I joined I have written once but not received a response. I WEL, which had only just started in Australia. I will check out the address again and see if she discovered sex, pot and other pleasures early in has changed her name or something before 1 write 1971. Robyn had the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, again. which she delighted in using. I'm not sure that Before I met Robyn, the most daring films I had the interesting omelette with a parsley-like sub­ seen were Stan Barstow’s A Kind of Loving and stance which I had on my twenty-second birthday The Graduate and all the Bond films, which now came from this recipe book. I remember it having seem incredibly sexist, The Great Race, The Sound an amazing effect!

20 Robyn sold her Mini at the end of 1970 and I remember about five years ago seeing an item bought an Austin-Healey Sprite. This was rather on the ABC about the wine bar and Matt Crowe, influenced by the fact that both of us fell in love who had been the owner when I used to visit there with the same blond blue-eyed Ross, who special­ and was still running the place. Robyn had a ised in doing up old Sprites and Peugeots in his black-and-white cat called Pippin, a horse, some spare time. Ross introduced me to Leonard geese and an outside dunny. I used to visit Robyn Cohen’s music and pot very early one Sunday and often stayed the night. It wasn't uncommon morning (long before my twenty-second birthday), to be sitting on the dunny and see the door open a very interesting combination! I moved into a flat and a large horse peer around the door to see what with Robyn at the end of 1970. was happening. 1971 was a year for experimenting with a lot of Life had become a bit complicated for me. I had things and for learning to ride a motor bike. I this habit of getting involved with the wrong sort decided not to try LSD and other drugs, for which of fellow. One was married and a Federal police­ I am glad. However, Robyn and others experi­ man, another was bisexual, which didn’t particu­ mented with lots of prescription drugs which were larly worry me, one was an Irishman who had easily available at the time. Thankfully I survived lived in England and was one of those many all of this fairly well. I decided that my meagre children who was separated from his parents and wage was not going very far and waitressed at a brought out to Perth by the Catholic Church just nearby motel and cleaned public service offices in after the war, against his wishes, another was a my spare time. Vietnam veteran and various others who were Early in 1971 Robyn had a horseriding acci­ unsuitable for one reason or another. Maybe it dent and fractured several vertebrae. This left her was some deepseated psychological thing that I in a great deal of pain and changed her lifestyle didn't want to be involved with someone who rather radically. Sadly, she became increasingly might offer a more permanent sort of relationship. difficult to live with, so we parted ways early in In 1972 I met Denis, who again was married. 1972, but still remained friends. At this stage I We had an affair, which was complicated because had bought a VW Beetle and travelled a great deal he had a kidney disease and was waiting for a of the ACT and NSW in it. Before this Robyn lent transplant. He had to have dialysis several times me the Sprite every so often which I thoroughly a week. His father had exactly the same problem enjoyed driving. The most amusing incident I can and had died at a young age. Denis's wife was also recall was one evening at the drive-in in the having an affair at the time, so maybe I felt it was middle of winter, when I was on my own. It was OK. I had very different ethics in those days and snowing lightly and I couldn’t get the hood down, didn't care too much about the consequences of much to the amusement of the people around me. what I was doing. He was a member of the Aus­ It made for very chilly viewing that night! I was tralia Party and very involved with Alan Fitz­ particularly fond of going to the coast with friends gerald, a Canberra journalist and cartoonist. The or often on my own and staying overnight, par­ irony of it all was that I became good friends with ticularly at Boydtown, just south of Eden on the Denis’s wife and children. Anyway, in January south coast of NSW. There was a hotel called the 1973 Denis became ill as the dialysis was now Seahorse Inn on the waterfront. There were no failing to do the job it was supposed to and he was other buildings close by, except the ruins of an admitted to hospital. His stepfather knew that I old church which was supposed to be haunted up was involved with him and thought it might be on a hill. A lot of the people who stayed there were better if I stayed away from the hospital for a regulars and worked around the area. I remember while. At the same time my father had a minor very late at night after some red wine, sitting at heart attack in Hobart. I arranged a three month the piano with an open fire and the sound of the transfer to Hobart with Immigration. It turned out waves breaking, moonlight on the water, playing to be an interesting experience and my parents all sorts of music to them. I had also done this were delighted to have me home again. I enjoyed quite often at the hostel very late at night, with a living with them for that period, and was quite a few friends around and candle light, being careful different person to the one who had left home. I not to get wax on the piano. Towards the end of had grown up. I received a call from a friend of 1971 Robyn moved to Gundaroo, a little country Denis’s and Robyn early in March 1973 to tell me town a few miles from Canberra. There were that it had all been too much for Denis. His heart probably only about forty houses in the whole had not been able to last the distance. He was town, and a wine bar. It had previously had a only thirty-one. I was pretty upset at the time. It licence to sell beer and other beverages, but ap­ was the first time in my life that someone I had parently one of the locals had got a bit out of been close to had died. Of course I wanted to go control one day, so the bar lost part of its licence to his funeral, but Robyn and other friends wisely and was restricted to selling wine. Robyn moved advised against it. into a little cottage which was built last century.

21 When Sally met John.

I returned to Canberra before Easter 1973. It was classical music and reading Nation Review — and good to see all my friends again as I had felt a bit that he couldn’t think of anything that didn't cut off from them in Hobart. One of my very interest him. He said that the previous Christmas favorite newspapers at the time and for some he had enjoyed himself immensely smoking pot years previously was Nation Review. For those of and listening to heavy rock at a party in Fitzroy; you who aren't familiar with it, it was a fairly drinking beer and watching the cricket on telly radical left-wing weekly newspaper which served with his brother-in-law; and talking about poetry as a means to criticise the then Liberal govern­ and group dynamics over an excellent claret with ment. Because John Hepworth was writing for It. an elderly novelist. Barbara had introduced me to it in 1969, when it The following week I decided to ring John at was still called the Sunday Review. Nation Review work. I liked the sound of his voice on the phone had a ‘dalliance’ column, which Robyn had used and we arranged to meet the following weekend on a couple of occasions. She suggested I put an on a Saturday night. We went to the local Chinese ad In their columns and see what happened, restaurant, owned by a Greek called Tom which I did. I can't remember exactly what I said, Bobolas, for a meal and seemed to hit it off. Some but it was something like 'I'm an Aries who likes Egyptian friends of mine. Fifi and Nabil were to laugh.' Robyn and I collected all the answers having a party, so we ended up at that. On the and took the letters with us to Sydney for the Sunday we went to watch a soccer match with weekend early in May 1973. A friend of ours was John's workmates. I went to Sydney the following selling World Book Encyclopedia on the side, as weekend with a good friend of Denis’s and had my well as being a public servant. World Book was one and only ride on a roller coaster at Luna Park, offering a free weekend in Sydney for people who but never again! John told me much later that he might want to become involved. Robyn and I had tried to contact me without success. I visited decided to take them up on it and went to Sydney him later in the week. for a very pleasant weekend. I can recall on the At the time this seemed a fairly unorthodox Saturday night we had all the letters spread out way to meet someone, and in some ways it still on the floor, trying to decide which ones we would does. I suppose I was lucky that I didn't get a reject or accept. There were several who sounded whole lot of nutters replying to the advert and I rather interesting. certainly wouldn't recommend it as a way of One of the letters was from a John Bangsund. meeting people these days. It’s a bit like hitch­ He said that he was companionable, but that his hiking these days. It would be one hell of a risk to ex-wife preferred to maintain this companionship take. However, if I hadn’t gone ahead with the ad, at a distance of 400 miles. He mentioned that he I probably would never have met John or dis­ had some pretty weird Interests — science fiction, covered the existence of fandom, which I would

22 regret very much. Although John and I had lived not got very much to add to what John has said. in the same hostel, Lawley, at the same time, we had never run into each other. I didn’t know that Just before I met John in May 1973, he missed there was such a thing as fandom. I had read out on going to Melbourne for the tenth Mel­ some science fiction and particularly enjoyed the bourne Science Fiction Convention in Easter more traditional style of authors like John Wynd­ 1973 because he had the flu amongst other ham. The one thing we never did, even to this day, things. He published a one-page Philosophical was tell the older family members how we really Gas which was devoted to his ‘Orstrilian national met, as they would not have understood or anthem’. The new Labor government was running approved. However, my brother and John’s a competition for a new national anthem, so John sisters accepted the situation quite readily. wrote one, but didn’t enter it in the competition. As to my first introduction to fandom, when I Instead he sent it to the Canberra Times, and this first went to John’s place at Kingston, George PG version was sung at the convention. Turner was staying with him. I recall walking into the kitchen and meeting George, just as he was ORSTRILIA trying to grill some tomatoes on an upturned A Fair-Dinkum Orstrilian National Anthem frying pan, as the griller was missing a few bits and pieces. I had no idea who George was and (Tune: “The Red Flag’ or *O Tannenbaum’) ended up having a very lively discussion with him (allegro assai, ma non troppo) about some films we had both seen recently. George didn’t seem to mind the fact that I had ALL: read very little science fiction! Orstrilia! Orstrilia! Ya know we’ll never filial We’ll fight fer ya and die fer ya Whene’er yer foes assilia! Our sunburnt land is green in spots; 1973: There’s gold in sand and we’ve got lots. My first experience of fandom We're big on Truth and Liberty! Orstrilia is the place for we!

SOLO: Because I didn’t keep a diary during the 1970s The East is Red, the South is not: and didn’t do so until the early 80s, I was having This is The Land That Time Forgot. a great deal of difficulty remembering the detail But Time has caught up with us now and sequence of particular events, while forget­ And we’re all reading Chairman Mao. ting some altogether. Then suddenly I had an idea. What if I went digging in the various boxes ALL: Yes, Time has caught up with us now in the garage and had a look at John’s older And we’re all reading Chairman Mao, fanzines? This took me further than I had But Chairman Mao is rather bleak intended, as I realise now that the best way of So now and then we read Newsweek approaching this would be to relate events as I remember them, then to reprint articles on the SOLO: same thing from John’s fanzines, or vice versa. With E. G. Whitlam at our head I’ve discussed this with him and he agrees with We’ll soon be either Red or dead. Whichever it turns out to be, the idea. I was on holidays when I decided to do It is our Modest Destiny. this, which is why I have the time to go delving into all the boxes in the garage. There were about ALL: eighteen boxes or so, some of them enormous Whichever it turns out to be, boxes, which had a mixture of what seemed to be It is our Modest Destiny, Anzapa, Applesauce and FAPA mailings going But destinies are bom, not made, back to the late 70s, and a number of other So ours trill likely be mislaid. fanzines. I pulled out all of John and Bruce Gillespie’s fanzines, plus an Anzapa index by SOLO: We all have homes and cars and jobs: Marc Ortlieb and lots of other memorabilia. I We’re all right Jack but we’re not snobs. hadn’t meant to spend quite a few days of my leave If everyone was like we are in August engrossed in other people’s fanzines, This world would be Utopia; but 1 found it an enjoyable experience. You will discover that in some cases I haven’t commented ALL: or said very much about events which John has If everyone was like we are been writing about. The reason for this is because This world would be Utopia; There’d be a lot less strife and fuss I either can’t remember much about the particu­ If everyone was just like us! lar time, which is mostly the case, or that I have

23 ALL: Orstrilia! Orstrilia! Ya know we’ll never filial We’ll fight fer ya and die fcr ya Whene’er yer foes assilia! SOLO: Our blokes are beaut, our sheilas grouse And we have got an Opera House! ALL: AND PIES WITH SAUCE, AND BI IP! ORSTRILIA IS THE PLACE FOR WE!

— (Philosophical Gas23, Easter 1973)

When I first met John, his favourite restaurant in Canberra was Lucky's Chinese restaurant in Kingston and the Golden Star in Queanbeyan, which specialised in tiny Yugoslav skinless sausages called cevapcici which I still like and they are delicious. I'm reprinting the following piece particularly for Bruce who will no doubt be as amazed at the prices of wine in 1973 as I was when I reread this. Seaview Cabernet Sauvignon is one of my favourite reasonably priced reliable wines, at least it was until the Budget a few weeks ago. I had been paying on special the price of $6.95 which was pretty good, but after the Budget it went up to $9.29 which is getting a bit too John Bangsund — mid-1970s. expensive at the local Safeway.

My favourite restaurant (the one with the tv set) has, as I When I met George in John's kitchen in May 1973 mentioned, run out of Orlando Barossa Cabernet. But all is not lost. The chef has started making all kinds of delicious Euro­ I had only known John for a few days, in fact four pean dishes, including cevapcici (which I love very much), and days! George had come to stay for a few days and the proprietor has bought in some really magnificent wines in John wrote the following about George's stay. the last few weeks. Last night I had a '66 Seaview Cabernet Sauvignon (their price $2.30, Private Cellar price $1.94, which On Thursday, 10th May, George Turner came to Canberra. I is rather incredible: the usual pricing formula in licensed don’t think Canberra was quite ready for him, but it seems to restaurants is twice retail plus a bit for luck) and a great mound have survived. He stayed with me until the following Tuesday, of them beaut little Yugoslavian-type sausage things with French and this was a mind-bending experience. On his very first day salad. Total outlay: $3.70. And the chef gave me a large sample here he presented himself at the bar of the Hotel Civic, of something else he's trying out, a kind of cheese and pastry announced that he was a stranger in the place, and within thing, the name of which eludes me — tarouk? — something twenty minutes knew more about where the action is in Can­ like that. Beautiful, anyway. berra than I suspected existed . . . While George was here I received (a) an enormous telegram, measuring about two feet — (Bundalnhn Quarterly 4, October 1972) by three, from most of my best friends in Melbourne, washing me a speedy recovery from my illness, and (b) half a dozen The cheese and pastry thing which John cassettes from Robin Johnson, containing not much less than describes sounds rather similar to burek, which nine hours of stuff from the Melbourne Eastercon . . .

is sold at most Hot Bread shops in Melbourne, (28th May) I think it was the day George went home when I although this has the addition of spinach. It’s a received a letter and a telegram, the first advising me that my flat round pie-like thing, which is cut into pieces mother was coming to stay for a while, the second that John when sold. When I first met John, I recall being a Julian planned to call in one day. John promised not to bring little amazed at his cooking techniques. It was his ‘forty footy mates', but on the following Saturday he arrived nothing to see him open a tin of something like and with him were two of his friends from Melbourne, John and David. We talked for a while and they went off to see Canberra. sweet and sour pork, and not cut the lid right off, I think I mentioned that this could be accomplished in twelve but use a pair of pliers to put it on the stove and minutes by sticking to the main roads, but might easily take a then when it was heated, lift it off the stove with fortnight if they got off them. Sally called in, John's lot came the same pair of pliers! His washing clothes tech­ back, and about 6 four of us (David had an invitation to dine nique also amazed me. Put all your washing in and sleep elsewhere) set out for dinner. Sally had mentioned the bath, have a shower over the bath, stomp on her need to visit a friend at Gundaroo, so we went there first. Now I have to confess that although I had heard of Gun­ the clothes a few times, then rinse them! No daroo I had never actually been there, and frankly wasn't even wonder he kept asking me to marry him! sure where the place is. I can report that it is a 1-o-n-g way from

24 Canberra when you arc hungry. In my usual accommodating all started talking about the possibility of all of us fashion I enjoyed the drive and the company, but John and living together on a farm. It was awfully cold on John soon began expressing their consternation at our expedi­ tion to Back o’ Burke in a quite amusing but heartfelt manner. that visit, so it must have been the next time, in My patience and their innocence were rewarded when we early 1974, that I went swimming in the dam on found the place; apart from Sally's friend’s house, a few ruined a nearby property and felt my feet squelch in the churches, a petrol pump and a couple of dogs, Gundaroo has, mud at the bottom of the dam and had my toes of all things, a wine bar. And we stood in that bar, talking to the nibbled at by yabbies. These were the days of locals, drinking port and generally enjoying ourselves no end hippies and communes and the idea of not having for more than a few moments. The proprietor showed us his to live in a big city and opting out appealed to all bottles of pre-war ‘Coronation’ brand sparkling sweet sherry, which I still refuse to believe in. Then we started feeling hungry of us very much. John had always got on well with again and drove to that Chinese restaurant in Kingston .. .Then Ruth and Barry and had the funny situation we listened to a swag of Mahler and talked deep stuff about the where at one stage Barry was his brother-in-law interrelationship of the arts and so on. twice over, as John had been married to Barry’s sister, Diane, the first time around. However, after (4th June) Robin Johnson arrived on Saturday morning and a few years of us all discussing living together in didn’t lose a thing in Canberra, which even if it detracts from the country somewhere in south-western Victo­ his image a little is nevertheless pleasant to report. Monica and John Litchen, more or less secretly married about a fortnight ria, Ruth and Barry discovered religion in 1976. ago, arrived on Sunday, and I feel very honoured that they more or less told us we were in league with the chose to spend a day of their three-day delayed honeymoon at devil or some such thing and wanted nothing to my place. With Sally, Helen and Leigh Hyde, we did some weird, do with us. They alienated themselves from all the fannish and altogether delightful things such as a short film family and went their own way. We heard nothing sequence at the National Library. Readers of Nation lirvinu will from them for about ten years, although John’s perhaps be pleased to know that when the short colour film for mother had a postcard or two from them. Australia in 75 is shown in Toronto this September I may be observed wearing a ferret T-shirt (or is it D-shirt?). 'Die milkbar at Manuka which sells papers on Sunday hap­ I had forgotten one particular humorous incident pened to have this week's National Times. The proprietor was a until I read something about it in a oneshot which little bemused when Robin and I bought five copies each, and was produced at 46a Wentworth Avenue Kingston Sally and John at least one each. If he had seen Robin a few on 21 July 1973. John mentions Robyn Price who moments later dumping the Times in a litter bin and keeping I mentioned last issue. Robyn absolutely loved only the colour supplement he would have been convinced we horses and although she wasn’t supposed to on were quite insane. But that issue has a passable article about sf and fandom by Tony Maiden, with interesting photos of Robin, medical orders because of the fractured verte­ Mervyn, Paul, Bert Chandler and George Turner. Oh, and brae, still loved riding when she could do it with­ Batman, yes. Robin and his Norslrihan News were also men­ out her doctor finding out. We were at Gundaroo tioned in Saturday’s Melbourne Age, but I didn’t discover that for lunch one Sunday. Lunch started at 1.30pm until tonight. Since Lee Harding was guest speaker at the last and went for a very pleasant eight hours as Fellowship of Australian Writers meeting in Melbourne, and enjoyable lunches often do. The highlight of the George Turner is writing an article and a story for Meanjin day was Robyn riding Baghdad into the dining­ (most illustrious of Australian literary journals), one cannot help feeling that sf and fandom arc getting some very useful room, which was quite an achievement as the publicity these days. room was very small and he was a very large horse! — {Philosophical Gas 22, May 1973) The oneshot which I mentioned a few lines ago was completed on 21 July. Leigh and Valma were In June 1973 we went to visit John’s sister Ruth staying with John at the time. Marea and Ken and her husband Barry at their place near Mill­ Ozanne and Eric Lindsay were visiting and every­ town in south-western Victoria, where they had one contributed. John mentions that ‘Last night been living for several years. I was looking forward saw possibly the best and certainly the biggest to going there. Milltown is near Heywood, in the mid-month (i.e. informal) meeting of the Canberra Grampians country in the south-west comer of SF Society at Leigh and Helen Hyde’s place. Victoria. I am particularly fond of the beautiful Sixteen people, I think, not counting children. countryside around this area. We drove down Very little in the way of drinking, oddly, but lotsa through Albury, Echuca, where we drank flagon talk . . . ’ (21 July 1973 at 46a Wentworth Avenue, red from coffee mugs in an unlicensed restaurant, Kingston ACT 2604) St Arnaud and Hamilton. The views of the John mentions that we were moving that week­ Grampians, particularly at a tiny town called end into a house at 20 Investigator Street, Red Dunkeld, are really quite magnificent. Ruth was Hill. We had this crazy idea which I mentioned about seven months pregnant at the time with last mailing that two could live cheaper than one Amanda who is now nineteen. They were living in and instead of me paying rent for my flat at a small house on a farm, with lots of animals, and Queanbeyan and him doing the same thing at had bought a block of land nearby with only a Kingston, why not share a house together. Did we dunny on it. I think it was at this stage that we save money? No. But it was a lot more fun!

25 However, in the process of moving house. I spent Sally and I left Canberra on 22nd December. I had spent quite very little time at my flat. One day when John and a few hours loading the Renault. With the twelve flagons of red and the stack of Scythrof> 28s and PG 26s (which I had planned Ross and I went to pack up my things, I walked to collate, staple and mail in Melbourne) on board the car had in the front door and had this eerie feeling that two inches clearance at the back. So I took all that stuff out and someone had been in there in my absence. I say put cases in instead. We were still a bit overloaded. eerie — it’s hard to describe the feeling when you The first night we stayed at Benalla, about 250 miles down suddenly realise that your place has been broken the road, and enjoyed the first night of our holiday watching tv into. The window in the bathroom was smashed, and eating honeyed prawns in the motel. Next day we headed which was presumably where the burglar had got cast into the mountains and drove the long (rough) way round Lake Eildon. It was almost worth it. Every Tew miles along that in, or was where the burglar wanted us to think unsurfaced, winding, up-and-down road we caught a glimpse he/she had got in. There were signs of things of the lake, made enthusiastic noises and stopped to take a being ransacked, but what made me feel distinctly photo or three. Then on through the fern forests, over the uncomfortable at the time was the fact that the Black Spur, and late in the afternoon, into the outer suburbs only thing which was missing was my electric of Melbourne. I felt like turning round and going back. I had blanket. This was when we realised that it must forgotten how big and ugly and nasty Melbourne is. (The have been someone who knew me and was trying feeling faded after a week or so, but I was glad to get away. Residents of New York, London and other great metropolises to make an unpleasant point. One of my female will find the place rather like a compact village when they coinc friends had a key to the place, which probably here next year, but two years of Canberra makes a city of two made it worse in a way, as I didn’t like to think of million or so a bit too much for the spirit, if not the mind.) the possibility that it might have been her but yet We spent about a fortnight meeting and re-meeting friends at the same time couldn’t dismiss that possibility. and fans. It seems invidious to name some names and not A few days after we moved into the house at others, but it would be churlish not to mention the wonderful Red Hill. I had to go into hospital for a small times we had with Leigh Edmonds, Irene and Lee Harding, Bill Wright, George Turner, Bert Chandler, John and Elizabeth operation and was supposed to rest for a few days Foyster, Paul Stevens and — in some ways best of all — my after that. Instead, Leigh and Helen Hyde decided mother and Carolyn and Sandy. But by New Year’s Eve we’d to throw a surprise house-warming party which had enough of people. We went to the drive-in by ourselves, was quite a surprise to the two of us! watched Cabaret and were thoroughly miserable, and came John commented: ‘Since May Sally has met home and watched a Christopher Lee horror movie on televi­ (and I am given to understand, liked, bless her) sion. George Turner, John Julian, Robin Johnson, Perhaps the most memorable occasion during that time was the night George, Bert, Lee and Irene came for dinner. (We Monica and John Litchen, Carolyn and Sandy, had my sister’s house: Joy was in Europe, Vei n in New Zealand.) Leigh Edmonds and Valma, Eric Lindsay, Marea George and Bert argued the night away magnificently — and and Ken Ozanne, Joan Dick and Tony Thomas. thirstily. Lee bowed out sometime before midnight (Irene had And my mother and nephew and sister and already collapsed), but the other two were still enthusiastically brother-in-law. And the local fannish fraternity, resolving all the world’s problems, political, moral and literary, of course.’ (Revolting Tales of Sex and Super­ when we poured them into a taxi in the small hours. Later that Science 4) morning, when Lee and Irene emerged, we learnt that things had Gone Bump in the Night — for them anyway. A storm had I remember very clearly meeting John’s mother blown up. Lee had opened the windows — something my sister and her grandson Mark for the first time. Mark and brother-in-law apparently are not in the habit of doing — was an adorable blond blue-eyed little boy of five and when the storm came it brought down about fifteen feet of who was easy to instantly like and persisted in pelmet and heavy curtain. Lee and Irene struggled in the dark cheating at cards at this early age. John’s mother to put the rotten things back, but gave up, and for the rest of seemed very sensible, but I was surprised when the night endured the brilliance of the flashing neon signs just down the street on the Burwood Highway. Lee told me .ill this we were washing-up and she said that she had over breakfast. He also told me that when the curtains came no objection to young people (not so young) living down there was suddenly a gentle sound of music: to be exact, together! I had only known her a couple of days the sound of that well-loved old tune ‘Beautiful Dreamer’. I when she said this and was most impressed with didn't believe him: the man's a writer after all, and this is exactly her forthright manner and also wondered the kind of thing a writer would invent to touch up an otherwise whether she was being a little premature as John merely passable dramatic story. A day or so later we found Joy's and I had only know each other for about three jewel-case, which when opened, or even merely touched, plays ... ‘Beautiful Dreamer'. weeks at this stage! Joy and Vem and their Robin Johnson remarked one night at the Degraves Tavern children Mark and Kelsey stayed with us a num­ that whenever I am within two hundred miles of Melbourne ber of times during 1973 and 1974 in between there is a thoughtless, blissful feeling of goodwill and content their overseas trips. descends over fandom. This, he said, is how he knew I had gone to visit my sister Ruth and her husband Barry at their farm in I’ve decided to reprint most of an article which Western Victoria last June — or at least hadn't been surprised to find later that I had done that. This also, he said, is why John wrote about our first Christmas together in Melbourne fandom spends most of the year thinking ill 1973. I've left a couple of paragraphs out, but thoughts and saying hard things about me, but clamours to buy otherwise it's reprinted almost in its entirety as I me carafes of Henry’s rough red when I’m in town. Robin think it's John writing at his absolute best. didn’t buy me any red, rough or otherwise, while I was in

26 Melbourne, so I don’t believe the rest of his story either. last in Hobart (1967: half a lifetime ago it seems) and on past The papers had warned us that the airlines had instituted the casino, where the gambling tables had just five minutes thorough checks of passengers and their baggage. Ansctt earlier ceased business for the day, to Lower Sandy Bay and the ignored entirely my rather bulky portable electric typewriter newsagency. The place was quiet; I could hear the river tide (which might have been a suitcase full of explosives and hand breaking gently on the beach; and it was freezing. Waiting for weapons, for all they knew) and radio/cassette recorder (ditto us was a young bloke named Bill, starting on the job that on a smaller scale). We had a bumpy and rather lengthy ride morning. He was wearing shorts and a parka. I shivered and lit to Hobart, where we were met by Sally’s parents. my seventh cigarette for the day. (We were in Tasmania for about ten days. By 15th January, Under the shop was a store-room containing mounds of when we flew again, the security had really tightened up. My newspapers, magazines, comics and junk — and the Machine. typewriter was inspected; myall-purpose bottle and can-opener, The function of the Machine is to ingest whole newspapers and which contains a knife-blade, was confiscated for a few minutes spew them out rolled and firmly wrapped in greaseproof paper. (did they really think that I would attempt to hijack a plane with It was designed, I decided, by Heath Robinson and sub­ a bottle opener? — it would be a compliment to drinkers sequently improved by Rube Goldberg. If you think that oper­ everywhere if they did); and I had to empty my pockets until ating a duplicator is fraught with hazard and frustration, you they were satisfied that the silver foil in a cigarette pack was should try a newspaper-rolling machine. I didn’t. Ijust watched. setting off the metal detector. We were the last to board the Theoretically it should get through a thousand newspapers plane.) easily in an hour; theoretically every last one of those papers Sally's brother has a newsagency in Sandy Bay, a rather will be rolled and encased in its protective cover with just exactly exclusive and comfortable suburb of Hobart on the lower slopes the right amount of paste to hold it together but not to seep of Mount Nelson. It is a suburb full of steep, meandering, through and glue the pages together. I guess if you tried hard narrow little streets and cul-de-sacs. Most of the houses look out enough and long enough it would do just that, maybe, but it over the Derwent, and the majestic bulk of Mount Wellington was certainly in a temperamental mood that morning. /\lso it looms a few miles to the west. Closer is the Wrest Point Casino, was about as quiet in operation as a pneumatic drill. I think I which also looms but is not majestic. The shopping centre in made a good impression by volunteering to wheel the Lower Sandy Bay can only be described as grotty. There is a barrowloads of rolled papers up the steep slope from the good pub, a service station (scheduled for demolition by the store-room to the street, but in fact I was escaping from the local council), a post office and a handful of uninteresting noise. Each trip took me about five minutes — less than a shops. One of the shops was a monbund newsagency nin by minute to take the barrow up and down, the rest to stand in the two elderly women, and this is the business which Graeme and street smoking and savouring the quietness. I don’t think I have his wife Helen bought last year. Already they have transformed actually heard a river before, but I heard it then — the gentle it into a lively and, it would seem, potentially very profitable surf of the Derwent breaking on the pure golden-white sand concern, supported enthusiastically by the locals. This would two blocks away mocking with its absolute timelessness the not have been achieved without the considerable assistance of thunk-thunk-thunk of the Machine. someone like Sally’s father. Right then and there I had an idea fora science fiction story, I have met people like Mr Yeoland before, but not many the kind of story that Lee Harding is good at writing, but I’ve I le is the kind of good, gentle man who gets things done quietly, forgotten what it was. It had something to do with Nature and thoroughly and without fuss. In a time when speed is more Progress, and the realisation that one was better than the other, valued than thoroughness, that virtue is sometimes held against but Ijust forget which was which, and it doesn’t matter anyway. him, but I know which I prefer. He is the kind of man who docs About 5 Graeme turned up, and we loaded his Valiant and more than is required of him, not to impress, but because of Bill's Falcon with the papers. Mr Yeoland went off with Bill to his nature. My father, a man very like him, called this 'going teach him the round, and I went with Graeme, sitting in the the second mile’. Mr Yeoland doesn’t quote scripture. back with hundreds of papers which kept on falling every time About 2 a.m. on Monday I was sitting by myself reading when we changed direction, which was often. I had the round-book, Mr Yeoland got up to go to work. We talked as he had his and my job was to yell out the street numbers — not that I was breakfast of tea and toast. I said I was almost inclined to go with really required: Graeme normally does the run by himself, and him, but... and I indicated the almost empty claret bottle, and I was just along for the ride. he laughed. He looked tired. Very much later the same day, Graeme had the radio on (‘Expected top temperature for after dinner, I said I would like to accompany him in the today is 19. Temperature in the city at this moment is 7. The morning to see what goes on behind the scenes in a time is ten past five and we listen to the big sound of...’) and newsagency. And I did. he smoked almost non-stop. We set off up Sandy Bay Road and I went to bed a little after 10. About 1.45 I was meditating I settled back to enjoy the ride — for about half a minute. irritably over my coffee, pondering yet again my essential Graeme nonchalantly threw a few papers over fences while stupidity, when Mr Yeoland came out. He suggested good- talking and smoking, then suddenly swerved onto the wrong humouredly that he hadn’t expected me to go through with it. side of the road. He’s a maniac! I thought, but I didn’t say so, I suggested we were both insane. Again he looked tired. I don't and it was just as well, because for the next hour or so we drove know how I looked, but I felt dead tired. However I felt, I was on the wrong side, went the wrong way down one-way streets, determined to prove to myself that I could keep pace with a reversed at hair-raising speeds down steep driveways I didn't man of sixty-two. This challenge kept me going for the next think he’d get up in the first place, missed parked cars by inches twenty-two hours. and generally breached every article in the traffic code. I asked About 2.30 we set off for Sandy Bay, about 38 kilometres him how he got on with the police, since I had seen a patrol car away. (I’m trying to Think Metric; if you aren't, make that about or two. He said they had stopped him once (no seat-belt, on the 24 miles.) An almost full moon gleamed on Frederick Henry wrong side of the road), he had explained what he was doing Bay and the lagoons by the road. We didn’t talk much. Sand­ and they just told him to be careful and disappeared. ford, Lauderdale, sleepy little villages, sped past, then the lights It was a nightmare, but I have been driven by Leigh Ed­ of Rokeby, Howrah and Bellerive, and across the silver Derwent monds and lived, so I accepted my situation fatalistically—and the street lights of Hobart, dominated by the orange-golden even found myself enjoying it in a macabre kind of way. tower of the casino. Over the Tasman Bridge, dirough the city About three-quarters of the way round we encountered a and onto Sandy Bay Road, past the motel I stayed at when I was milk truck. It was reversing rapidly towards us, out of a dead-end

T1 street. Graeme said ‘Do you think he’s seen us?’ I shouted ’No!’ My brother and his wife had moved back to and Graeme threw the Valiant into reverse and roared off Hobart from Canberra in April 1973 and had backwards into another street. The driver of the milk truck bought the newsagency almost straight away as waved to us when he eventually saw us, and we waved back and Graeme had resigned from the public service in went on into the street he had been in. We reversed out as he had done, and from then on every house we passed had milk Canberra and didn’t have a job. They had been bottles outside. In die next street there was a house with a little living in Canberra since 1966 and Helen was brick pillar at the entrance to its driveway, and on top of the homesick for Hobart and her family who all lived pillar a bottle of milk. I said to Graeme ‘The trick is not to hit in Hobart. They hung onto the newsagency until the bottle.’ He laughed, flung a paper and hit the bottle. It fell 1976 when Graeme joined the State public over — and slipped into a cavity in the pillar unbroken. I said service. He said recently that their time in the ’That was 44. wasn’t it?', Graeme said yes, I said 'They don’t get a paper!’ — and we roared laughing. ‘They deserve one,' he newsagency was the hardest they had ever said. And on we went. worked in their lives and he really appreciated It was easily the most dangerous and hilarious car ride I have getting back into a 9-to-5 job. ever experienced, with Graeme commenting on the magnifi­ My father continued to work as a motor cent news, driving one-handed while picking up papers from mechanic in his business in Sandy Bay until the the floor, and throwing them in every direction, out of, over, late 70s and then ’retired', but not in the real and possibly even under the car, reversing at speed down steep inclines onto the main road, and all the time smoking, listening sense. He always had several cars at home which to the radio and keeping up a laconic commentary on his he had bought cheaply, often in Melbourne, and customers — while I hung on, yelled out numbers and won­ he would then do lots of hard work restoring them dered if the next comer would be our last. and selling them. Also, living in a small seaside Somehow we made it back to die shop. In die daylight I town and being the only motor mechanic available looked at Graeme's reasonable collection of sf — Asimov, meant that he was in constant demand until his Herbert, Spinrad, Boyd, Aldiss, and others more expected — death in 1985 at the age of 75. My parents decided and shordy afterwards set off widi Mr Yeoland to deliver some accounts and do the banking. Mr Yeoland prefers to bank at in 1958 that they were tired of city life and at that the casino, so we went there. After paying in what seemed a vast stage my mother had lived all her life in New Town amount of money we went down to the gambling room. Outside and my father at Middleton where he was bom, the sun was shining, the water clear and the sand clean and Sandy Bay and New Town. Middleton is a little pleasant underfoot. Inside die casino it was dark and gloomy town on the banks of the Derwent about 40 miles and oppressive. There were a dozen or so gamblers at the tables. or so south of Hobart. It is separated from the The girls looked bored. We watched for a minute or so, and main part of the river by a large island and the then a very nicely dressed, ever so polite young man sidled up to us and murmured that ties and jackets were required in diis stretch of water inbetween the shore and the room — and since we had neidier, we retired without regret. island is known as the Channel. It is right in the Mr Yeoland and I went back to the shop, did a few chores heart of apple-growing country and most of the necessary, and retired to the pub. Sally found us there, by towns around this area have orchards of one sort telephone, and we drove into town to have lunch with her. We or another. My father lived at Middleton until his lunched on an excellent meat dish, with a superb red wine twenties and interspersed with this, went to which would have cost three or four times as much in Canberra, and went home. We had about an hour’s sleep before the Clemes College, a boys’ school in Hobart, and women woke us, and then drove back into Hobart and dined then became an apprentice motor mechanic at with Graeme and Helen. It was a great meal and a great evening. the age of 14. He was the oldest child, and when We got back to Cremome about midnight, and I slept for twelve his father died unexpectedly when my father was hours. (Mr Yeoland got up about 2, as usual, and spent roughly 13, he was expected to go out and earn a living. the same kind of day that I have tried to describe. I don't know The family house was called Taronga, and his how he does it but I kept up with him for one day at least.) ... parents had an apple orchard and spent a lot of Back on the Mainland (as Tasmanians, with just a hint of a sneer, call the big island to their north) we saw a few friends in their days fishing in the Channel. When my father Melbourne again, then set off for Ruth and Barry’s place in the met my mother in the late 1920s, she was a TB Western District. Here we spent several idle days, their delight nurse at the Sanatorium, one of those hospitals spoilt (for me) only by Barry’s plying me with excellent wine with lots of chalets typical of the 1920s, and and superb music and then thrashing me at chess. nursed my father's youngest brother who had TB. On then to /Xdelaide. All of Australia’s state capitals hold It was not uncommon for my father to row his boat some attraction for me, and good memories. Of the six I tend to think of Adelaide as my favourite, yet on this visit I was seeing up the Channel from Middleton to the city to meet the city for the first time. Perhaps it was because I had no special her. I’m sure this influenced them both in 1958 reason for going there; in the past I have always had a reason to move from the city from a lovely Federation — business, special events (the Festival, and many years ago style house in New Town, which had been my church conferences) or people I wanted to see. Perhaps it was maternal grandmother's house, to Cremome simply for the first lime I had my own transport there. I which is about a 20 minute drive from Hobart. deliberately did not seek out friends and fans: I wanted to They had visited there on a number of occasions, discover Adelaide, itself, die place, just with Sally. We decided we could live in Adelaide very happily, and if the opportunity because my swimming teacher lived there and arises we might do just that. although a lot of her lessons were conducted at the Wrest Point swimming pool, long before the — (Philosophical Gas 27, Autumn 1974) days of the present Casino, I often had to go to

28 Cremome for lessons. They fell in love with Cre- of shock. The following Monday we went into mome, which is not hard to do and decided to buy Births Deaths and Marriages and filled out the the swimming teacher's house when she decided necessary forms. The time for lodging a notice of to sell it. It was on a double block, right on the intended marriage was supposed to be a month beach front. Cremome overlooks Frederick Henry before the actual date. However, the time could Bay which becomes part of the Tasman Sea. It is be abridged if there were special circumstances, a beautiful bay about ten miles or so across and such as interstate travel. I had already arranged at that stage, very few people lived there and to take the Falcon down to Hobart the following commuted with the city. There were mostly holi­ weekend, so this was acceptable to Roger and we day houses and a few retired people who had lived made arrangements for the ceremony the follow­ there for most of their lives. We moved there in ing Friday evening. I had never ever wanted the 1959 and I enjoyed ten years or so of living by the traditional sort of wedding, the idea of which sea, which was a wonderful environment to grow horrified me and a quiet private ceremony without up in. I spent most of the warmer months swim­ any fuss seemed very appealing. This suited both ming, going for long walks along the rocks and of us, because I didn’t attend Church on a regular cliffs and riding my bicycle to other beaches. The basis at that stage and felt that it would be weekends were usually taken up by visits from hypocritical to get married in a Church. Also, my numerous aunts, uncles and their families, as there would have been another complication, as it was a popular place to visit. My father had a the Anglican Church at that stage still took a very large heavy dinghy, and on many occasions I went narrow view of a divorcee wishing to marry and out fishing with him in the Bay. I’m quite sure would not have allowed us to have a normal that the healthy life by the sea helped prolong his service, but only a Church blessing. We finally life as he had been suffering from very high blood told our relatives a couple of days before and I'm pressure since the early 1960s and with the sure my parents were disappointed that we didn’t outdated blood pressure treatment available want all the family to attend, but they handled it then, his blood pressure didn’t really get under very well at the time. John’s sister Joy wanted to control until the late 70s. fly up for the ceremony and we threatened to call it off if she did! It was a pleasant ceremony, with one of my best friends (who is a cat lover!) and Bob Lehane who was a good friend of John’s as 1974: witnesses. Afterwards we all adjourned to the Donovan, Dylan and Darwin Bacchus Tavern (where I had celebrated my twenty-first birthday several years before) and had a very pleasant meal of steak, claret, oysters 18th April — Sally and I were married at 6.30pm on Friday 29th and riesling (but not in that order). John recalls March. The ceremony was conducted by Mr Roger Thomson us having a bombe alaska but I have to admit that of the Attorney-General's Department, and witnessed by Miss my memory got rather vague as the evening Rosemarie Bell (Immigration) and Mr Robert Lehane progressed. (CSIRO). The ceremony seemed to consist of filling in forms When we got to Melbourne late in the afternoon in quintuplicate. The bride wore a purplish-bluish-greenish the following day to stay with John’s sister Joy, caftan of her own making, the groom an elderly but serviceable dark grey suit. Both later reported feeling radiant, and a little we found that she had excelled herself by organ­ nervous. ising a party of relatives and friends. These Leigh Edmonds, devious swine and all-round jolly good included George Turner, Leigh and Valma, Lee fellow that he is, has quoted me as saying that the wedding went and Irene, Bill Wright, Bruce Gillespie, Robin without a hitch. I did say those words — but I was quoting from Johnson, John and Elizabeth Foyster, Peter Dar­ Sue Clarke’s account of her wedding, dammit! ling, and some relatives. It was a very pleasant On Saturday we drove Sally’s ancient Falcon station wagon afternoon meeting all the fans I had previously to Melbourne, and on Sunday were feted splendidly by close relatives, most of our friends in Melbourne fandom and a few met the previous Christmas and on a previous friends who were not fans. On Monday afternoon I flew back visit during 1973 at the Degraves. to Canberra, leaving Sally to take the Falcon on to Hobart. We The Degraves Tavern was downstairs in had a joyful reunion on Wednesday night, but we still think it Degraves Street, just off Flinders Lane. When was a pretty daft sort of honeymoon. John was working at the Railways Institute in the 1960s he often used to have lunch there. Some­ — (Philosophical Gas 27, Autumn 1974) time in 1967 or 1968 fans started eating there once a week in the evening, because it was the In the months before we eventually got married I sort of place where a number of people could can remember John asking me about once a week gather and also have a speaker if they wanted to, whether I would many him and I kept saying no and in fact one of the early Nova Mob meetings quite regularly. I still can't explain why I eventu­ was held there. I'm fairly sure that this was where ally said yes. It was the Friday before 29 March I first met a number of fans like Leigh and Valma, when I did say yes, which put John into a state

29 Lee and Irene and lots of others in 1973. John Coquilles St Jacques which we all enjoyed so wrote the following about Henry, the proprietor, much that we asked the waiter to repeat the early in 1973: experience, wonderful steaks and numerous bottles of alcohol. The motel was only about 1 km On Wednesday, 20th December, I drove into town from Bur­ from the restaurant and all of us were extremely wood (the Renault handles very nicely on the freeway at 90) pickled by the end of the evening. I'm not sure and walked into the Degraves Tavern, traditional meeting-place how I managed to drive us to the motel, as we were of Melbourne fandom for some years. (Formerlyjcnny's Cellar. See ASFR5, p. 41.) My arrival surprised everyone except Diane, all well over .05% . I can remember walking into who knew I would be there, and Henry, the proprietor, who is our room at the motel and finding an enormous surprised at nothing. Even as I reached the bottom step ginger cat on the bed. The next day we all nursed (assorted fans recoiling at their rediscovery of a sense of won­ our sore heads and went to the nearest cafe in der) Henry was calmly pouring me a complimentary glass of Tahmoor to have some coffee. When John went to house red, which he presented to me at the bar with the words pay for the coffee Carolyn offered to pay, but John *So you’re back’ — or something polite like that. ‘Yes, sir,’ 1 said. ‘I’ve been to Canberra and changed the government, and said that’s OK, you paid for last night. have returned for further instructions. Sir.' ‘I still think you’re John’s mother became an instant celebrity a bloody spy,’ said Henry. ‘Mem)’ Xmas.’ ‘And a Merry Xmas to about this time by sitting in a rocking-chair and you,’ I said, raising my glass in salute. He refilled it. 'Your friends rocking away for 61 hours. She set the world are over there. You have noticed already. Good. Your wife looks record for 61-year-old widows rocking nonstop in very attractive tonight. I do not know what she secs in you, and rocking-chairs. For her efforts she received a I am not interested.’ Ah, it was good talking to Henry again. Jason rocker which she proudly showed off to us — (Philosophical Gas 18, February 1973) when we next visited Melbourne. Apart from getting married in 1974 the other Back to 1974 . . . significant thing that happened was getting Dylan and Donovan in September 1974. Our next door 4 July — Last weekend Sally and I went to Sydney for a friend's neighbours in 1974 were Cathy and Robert at birthday party, and we thought that, having driven something Hartley Street in Turner. We moved there in May like 300 km (actually about 190 miles, but as of 1 July distance 1974 after the owner had decided to sell the place in Australia is officially measured in kilometres, and if 1 have to at Red Hill. Turner was a very convenient suburb get used to it, you might as well, too), we might as well sec some other friends while we were about it. We had a late lunch with to live in. It is very close to Canberra’s city centre, Shayne McCormack, at a place called Harpoon Harry’s. The about 2 km, and is one of the older suburbs. restaurant wasn’t much to look at, but the food was awful. And Having said that. I’m trying to work out how old the wine. Shayne showed us lots of photos of herself with Isaac the house we were living in would be. I think it Asimov, with Bob Bloch, with Bob Silverberg, with . . . Fortu­ would have been 1930s as were most of the nately Sally hadn’t heard of any of these people, except the houses around the area and for Canberra that’s three mentioned (because she has read Asimov and heard me talk of the two Bobs), otherwise we might have both turned old. The house at Turner was very pleasant — green with envy and thrown bits of underdone shazlik at her in double-brick, with three bedrooms, separate uncontrollable pique and envy. (I wonder how ‘shazlik’ is really diningroom and a veranda out the back which spelt: I can’t find the word in any of my dictionaries.) was ideal for a table tennis table. The garden was Then we went to see Bert Chandler. He looked older than one of those older English gardens with lots of I’ve ever seen him — that stands to reason, I suppose. We talked shrubs around. Cathy and Robert were about the of this and that, and he autographed three of his books for Sally. same age as me and had a lovely German short- (If I don't watch her, Sally will have read more of Bert than I have soon.) He had just received his copy of John IV. Campbell: haired pointer called Kruger, who was only a an Australian Tribute— which rather surprised me because I couple of years old and a very dark brown. They posted it early in May — and I asked him what he thought of iL also had a cat called Poxy who was also a couple Naturally, his comments were kind. I have never heard Ben of years old. make an unkind comment about anyone, except Colonel Poxy and Minx, a pretty silky tabby from over Khadafly (I feel I need some new dictionaries). But he did say the back of their place, got together and had four that, after reading Redd Boggs’ article in the book, he felt I kittens. When Minx was pregnant, I asked Cathy should ask Redd to write a column for Philosophical Gas entitled ‘Pon Watch’. if I could have one of the kittens and she agreed. The birthday party was just great, but not quite what our I saw Dylan when he was 10 days old and he friend had expected. Four of us had a delightful dinner at a looked like a little wombat with his eyes just French restaurant at Tahmoor, about 100 km from Sydney. On opening. I decided that this black-and-white little Sunday Sally and I drove back to Picton, across the mountains thing was the one I wanted. I saw him at various to Wollongong, and back to Canberra via the Princes Highway. times until he was old enough to take away from It was a good weekend. his mother at about six weeks. It wasn’t until he — (Philosophical Gas 28, Winter 1974) was much bigger that I realised he was the spit­ ting image of his father Poxy. Both had exactly the What John doesn’t say about the birthday same markings, black except for a white tummy party is that it was Sandy's birthday. We met at and white paws, and a white fleck through the Tahmoor and proceeded to polish off entrees of black fur. Donovan, a ginger tabby, came from a

30 farm at Bungendore a week later. A friend at work asked me if I would like another kitten, which I immediately agreed to, and Donovan arrived. He and Dylan were about the same age, although Donovan was much smaller and didn’t have any whiskers when we got him. Apparently he’d been in a fight with one of the farm dogs and was much too tiny to defend himself. When we first got the two of them we discussed various names and had initially decided to name Dylan after Dylan Thomas. But when Donovan came along it seemed appropriate to name him Donovan as these were two of my favourite singers at the time. John describes Turner in a mailing comment to Rosemary Hickey:

When you wrote about driving to work in six or seven minutes’ I was probably still living in Red Hill. Last May Sally and I moved to Turner, which is the second suburb north-west of Canberra City. From Turner to Civic takes about 15 minutes, walking. Two minutes driving. I work on the south side of Lake Burley Griffin, so these days I find that it takes all of twelve minutes to gel from my driveway to the car-park at work. But then, Can­ berra is a small city (I rely now entirely on memory: less than Sally, with Dylan (left) and Donovan. half the size of Dallas). In Melbourne I’ll bet Leigh Edmonds takes nearly an hour to cover the same distance I do each morning. Canberra is designed for cars, you see. news broadcast this afternoon had it that 25,000 people are to — (Philosophtral Gas 28, Wimer 1974) be evacuated to Sydney. The cyclone is reported to be following roughly a circular route, which means it could strike what is left of the city again. Seven RAN ships are on their way, and are Not long after getting the two kittens 1 got expected to arrive on 1 January. If Tracy decides to strike again trigeminal neuralgia, which is a virus in the next week we’ll be short of one (I) Navy. trigeminal nerve in the face and was bombed out This morning’s story in the Canberra Tunes, taking up two- on painkillers for a few weeks before I eventually thirds of the front page, is about the worst piece of journalism got rid of it. At this stage my parents visited us for I have seen in years. Maybe there was only one cadet reporter the first time. My father used to always drive on duty yesterday. ’The death toll is expected to rise even higher as the rescue teams move in.' Why? Are they awfully clumsy? Falcon station wagons, which was an advantage ‘The few meagre reports received in the more populated south­ when they came to visit, as they came over on the ern Stales . . .’ Relevance? Is the writer attempting to give a Princess of Tasmania with the car. which was crash course in Australian geography? Darwin is the capital city usually loaded up with furniture and other items of the Northern Territory, which is not a state. Queensland for us. 1 think at this stage my parents brought extends further north than the Northern Territory. The great over a grandparent's dressing-table and my bulk of Australia’s population lives south of the 30th parallel, certainly, but half of Western Australia and most of Queensland grandmother's very ornate treadle sewing- occupy the same latitude as the Territory. So what is die writer machine, which I was very pleased to have. We trying to say? . .. acquired a table-tennis table about this time and Tile bit that I don’t understand is that the cyclone was it was always enjoyable to have a game of table known to be heading for Darwin on 22 December. I’m not sure tennis with visiting fans, of which there were exactly what I would do if I knew that a cyclone was three days many, especially John Foyster. Robin Johnson. away from Canberra, but I would expect to know about it, and John and Monica Litchen, and lots of others. Ken I think I might have been better prepared for it than the people of Darwin seem to have been. Ford visited us late in 1974 and I still have a photo of him holding the two kittens, one in each hand. — (First Draft 1, January 1975)

We spent Christmas 1974 in Melbourne with I think that at this stage the reason Cyclone John's sister Joy and brother-in-law, Vern. The Tracy came as such a shock to us all was that most memorable thing about Christmas 74 was we'd always thought of Australian cities as being Christmas Day In Darwin. pretty safe and impenetrable and the thought of a city being wiped out by a cyclone was pretty Damn was not the place to be on Christmas Day. Cyclone Tracy dramatic. The following Christmas was made achieved what the Japanese failed to do in 1942 by virtually wiping out the city. Reports are still confused, but it seems that even more memorable for me by the crashing of something like 90% of Darwin's buildings have been partly or the Lake Illawarra into the Tasman Bridge and wholly destroyed, 44 people killed and hundreds injured, and putting the Bridge out of action in Hobart for 25,000 people (out of a population of 40,000) homeless. One several years.

31 way back to Tullamarine. About 2.30 a.m. the plane arrived at Hobart, and Sally and 1975: her father were waiting for me. About 3 we got to Crcmome. From Worldcon and Coup Mrs Ycoland fussed over me, insisting 1 should have coffee and cakes and things, but all I wanted to do was go to bed. I think I to Adelaide was not as civil to my in-laws as I should be, but it really had been a long day. My Easter in Hobart was a rather dreamy and confused time. There were more people at Canberra airport than I ’ve ever seen The Yeolands’ house is right on the beach at Frederick Henry there. The lounge was crowded with ambulant, perspiring Bay. I spent hours looking at the water: it changes colour with bodies waiting for delayed flights and inert, somnolent bodies the weather and the light. (What an incredibly trite thing to say! hoping for cancellations. (It was the same at Melbourne and But there is nothing trite about Frederick Henry Bay, and Hobart airports.) After checking in I went outside for a cigarette Canberra is a long way from the sea.) One night I went out and or five and a breath of fresh air, and watched people. I like took some inept photos of the full moon — enormous and watching people. There was a well-dressed lady vomiting decor­ bright golden-orange it was — rising across the bay. All the time ously into the shrubbery opposite the TAA entrance. There was I was there I was conscious of the waves crashing or gently a Fiat-full of well-bred public servants and dogs. There were lapping on the beach, only a few metres from the house, an many white government Fairlanes containing bored drivers, unaccustomed and vaguely disturbing but satisfying sound. waiting for visiting important persons. (Who on earth would One day, I promised myself again, one day I shall live in a house come to Canberra for Easter? I wondered.) The air was crisp. I like this in a place like this. was tired. I had a long way to travel. In January the Lake Illawarra, carrying stuff for the Electro­ Last time I travelled by air the plane was held up while lytic Zinc works (where Don Tuck spends the time he can’t officials decided whether my combination bottlc-opencr/cork- devote to science fiction bibliography), ran into the Tasman scrcw/pocket-knife was a lethal hijacking implement under the Bridge, with disastrous consequences. Bert Chandler may say Terms of the Act. There was no inspection at Canberra. I could what he will but I cursed the master of that ship when we set have held up the DC-9 with my bottle-opener and demanded out for dinner in Hobart Town on Easter Saturday. We had to to be flown to Kuwait or West Footscray — and it would have drive something like seventy kilometres from Crcmome to the been entirely their fault. city. We had a gorgeous meal with the Yeolands, senior and A smooth flight to Melbourne. I had three hours to kill, so junior, at a French restaurant in Battery Point. Then we had to I grabbed a taxi and headed for the Vineyard restaurant in St drive back. I admit, enthusiastically even, that the company and Kilda, where I had arranged to have dinner with my good the food made that drive worth while, but 1 wouldn't want to friends Sandy and Carolyn. The taxi-driver said he was having do it every weekend. Some people do it every day. an incredibly quiet night and suggested he call back for me Mr Yeoland remarked at some time during this visit that I about 11.1 thought that was a great idea, because I really wanted don’t say much. This is half true. When 1 haven't anything to to be on that midnight flight to Hobart, drunk, sober or say, I don’t say much. When I’ve had a bit to drink, I say a lot. otherwise. The driver's name wasjohn. I enjoyed talking to him Sally, and my friends in fandom, will confirm this. But if I didn't as he weaved his almost worn-out Falcon through the Mel­ say much at Crcmome it was probably partly because of the bourne traffic. He promised he would call back for me unless book I was reading there. Martin Boyd's autobiography, Day of he got a fare to Ballarat (‘Please, God! ’ he said, taking his hands my Delight, is a strangely disturbing book, and I still haven’t quite off the wheel to raise them in mock prayer — and immediately come to terms with it. I’ll say a bit about it before I'm finished, replacing them to avoid a giddy VW fastback). but not right now — except that it brought on me an attack of It was great seeing and talking to the girls again, even if I High Resolves and things, now, I am pleased to say, more than had a touch of jet-lag or whatever and wasn’t exacdy making half forgotten. (High Resolves are no good for everyday living, scintillating conversation. The Vineyard's cevapcic, I decided after all.) again, is superior to the Golden Star’s at Queanbeyan. I’m not Quite apart from anything else, I went to Hobart thinking a connoisseur of Yugoslavian food, but I certainly like cevapcici. about some Australian writers for whom I have a great fondness. The girls presented me with two beautiful books (about Cer­ John Hepworth, who writes the ‘Outsight’ column in Nation vantes and Aubrey Beardsley) to remind me that Sally and I had Review, I have always associated with Tasmania. He and Sally been married for a year. 'Dunno what she sees in you,’ Carolyn have mutual friends. On the Friday before Easter John had a said. A little before 11 John came into the restaurant, and we curiously ambiguous piece in his column about the suicide (or invited him over for a drink. He seemed a little surprised. Then perhaps-suicide: I wasn’t sure what he meant, to be honest) of it was goodbyes all round and I got into John’s Falcon, and Owen Webster, a local writer of whom I had heard a lot, never Carolyn rushed out as we were about to drive off and pointed met, and frankly, did not admire a great deal. On Maundy to her new Corolla across the street (Chloe II— an impressive- Thursday there was a letter in Nation Revinu, signed by Phillip looking beast) and I grinned and said ‘See you soon’, and we Adams, Stephen Murray-Smith, Barry Watts and other people were off. I got talking to John about humour. He wanted to for whom I have a great respect, taking Hepworth to task for know Carolyn’s address and phone number, but I diverted him his‘frivolous’ obituary .John can be obscure at times — I’m sure and we talked about humour. I asked him what he thought he would be the first to admit it — and I didn’t know until I about Benny Hill. I don’t like Benny Hill. John pulled up in read that letter that Owen really had taken his own life. I went Sydney Road, leapt out, opened the boot of his cab and got back to Hobart wondering exactly what happened, and concerned in with a cassette player. He drove on, one hand on the wheel, about John. die oilier fumbling with the machine. Eventually he found his On the same Thursday I had a letter from Phillip Adams favourite Benny Hill track—‘The Fastest Milkman in the West’ Phil gave me advice on how to become a professional writer, or something. I made complimentary noises, hoping like mad and it was good advice. Establish a power base, he said; get a he wouldn’t run into anything. He said he’d only ever once regular column in Nation Review or somewhere. And I read been invited to have a drink with a fare before, and that was Phil's letter, and I thought about Oven, who had established with Kevin Dennis (the fastest used-car dealer in die South). such a power base and got no joy from it (his final column in He seemed a little moved, and happy. I liked him, I decided, N/imade that very clear), and I knew that if I am ever to become even if he damn-near killed us both at least five times on the what the world calls a writer I should be a writer like Owen

32 Webster, whom I did not admire, rather than a writer like ber a punt service which existed from Risdon to Phillip Adams, whom I admire immensely, and here was Phil advising me to follow the kind of career that led to Owen's the same point at Goodwood during the 1950s. I suicide. And on the same day there was Phil's signature on a can also actually remember the bridge which letter in NR reproving John Hepworth for what John had said existed over the Derwent from Hobart to the about Owen's death. eastern shore before the Tasman Bridge. It Do you wonder that I went to Hobart confused? opened up the possibility of development on the With the utmost respect to Phil andjohn, and to those who eastern shore, which previously had not existed, admired Owen, I do not wish to follow in their footsteps, even as there was no bridge prior to this, except the if I were capable of doing so, which I doubt. Not at all. My own one at Bridgewater. The Tasman Bridge was footsteps arc erratic enough, god knows, and outside fandom hardly anyone knows I exist, but I really prefer to muddle along opened in 1965. The previous bridge was a float­ in my own way. I confess that I would like the Big World to ing arch bridge made of two very large pontoons, acknowledge my existence, but I don’t lose much sleep worry­ built during the Second World War and opened in ing about it. 1943. It moved with the wind and the water, Anyway, there I am at Cremornc, watching the moon rise which meant that on a stormy day you could be over Frederick Henry Bay, and reading Martin Boyd. driving across and have waves breaking over the sides of the bridge and feel the bridge moving! — (Philosophical Gas 31, July 1975) There was a small section near the Hobart side which could be raised, so that ships could go up Carolyn and Sandy were two good friends of or down the Derwent. John’s who used to live in the same block of flats It took about two or three years for the Tasman at Bundalohn Court, St Kilda in the late 60s, and Bridge to be repaired, by which time people had Carolyn became a special friend during a couple generally got used to the inconvenience. After the of periods of John’s life. disaster, the government decided to install a series of safety lights, which would warn motor­ The good thing about fanzines is that they are a ists of any problems on the bridge before they very good substitute for diaries. We still have the crossed it. The bridge was quite high, and when photos that John took, looking out of the window the Lake Hlawarra collided with it, hitting one of of my parents’ house at Cremome. The view was the concrete pylons and dislodging several others, spectacular, especially at night with the moon this caused a segment of the bridge to collapse shining across the water. into the water. This part of the story still makes The crashing of the Lake Hlawarra into the me feel slightly uneasy travelling across that Tasman Bridge had a tremendous effect on the bridge even now. When the pylons collapsed, 50,000 people living on the eastern shore (about there were still cars travelling across the bridge. one-third of Hobart’s population). Without the Several cars actually went into the water, with bridge they had to drive north about forty miles subsequent loss of life. However, there were a or so to the next bridge, which was at Bridgewater, couple of cars hanging off the edge of the about thirty miles or so from Hobart, and then collapsed part and thankfully these people sur­ drive down to Hobart. From my parents’ place, vived, the type of thing you often see in movies, which was about 17 miles from the city, it was but this was the real thing! After the disaster a usually only a twenty-minute drive. My father was number of residents moved from the eastern still working at Sandy Bay at that stage, and had shore to the Hobart side of the river, and of course to drive this extra distance twice a day to get to it was rather difficult for these people to get and from work, if he wanted to take his car to reasonable prices for their homes at the time. work. An emergency 24-hour ferry service was set Apart from the current high rate of unemploy­ up the moment the disaster occurred, from ment and the green issue of dams for hydro­ Bellerive, just opposite Hobart on the eastern electricity, this is one of the most significant shore, to the wharves at Hobart. The government things to affect Hobart during my lifetime. was criticised at the time for the lack of a govern­ There were a lot of things about the bridge ment hospital on the eastern shore and for not disaster that I couldn’t remember very clearly, so providing better river transport facilities. Later I went to the State Library and had a look at still, a Bailey bridge was built from Risdon (site of microfiches of newspapers from 1943, 1965 and the first settlement in Hobart by John Bowen in 1975, all of which were very interesting. Because 1803) to Goodwood, a couple of suburbs north of of the war, presumably, there wasn’t an official Hobart, which improved conditions for people on opening of the Hobart Bridge in 1943. A couple of the eastern shore considerably. For those of you days after it was opened, early in December 1943, who might not know what a Bailey bridge is, it’s there was a tremendous storm which snapped a the type the army use, presumably in wartime couple of bolts on the bridge, causing it to be and on manoeuvres. It is fairly quickly assembled closed for repairs until Christmas Day. In March and reasonably stable, although one has to drive 1965 the Tasman Bridge was opened by the Duke across it in a single lane and fairly slowly and and Duchess of Gloucester with much pomp and carefully. I’m old enough, dare I say it, to remem­

33 ceremony. I found it surprisingly upsetting look­ why), buying subscriptions from us, and altogether making us ing at photos of the Tasman Bridge after the feel that we really are as good as you tell us we arc. Philosophical Gas, despite my occasional outbursts to the disaster on 6 January 1975. I say surprising, contrary, continues to be very largely concerned with science because I didn’t expect it to have any effect almost fiction. I’ve tried to interest my moronic readers in a better class twenty years later. The bridge actually took three of literature, such as the works of Thomas Love Peacock, Brian years to repair, and I remember going over it for O’Nolan and Lennie Lower, but sf keeps on rearing its ugly the first time afterwards and realising I would head and I guess I just have to live with that if I want to go on never feel safe on it again, which probably sounds publishing (and I do, I do: I don't know why, but I do!) so PG must be regarded as a science fiction fanzine. ridiculous, but I know a lot of other Hobart people It is also, as John Clark up there in Queensland remarked felt the same way. a few issues back, my private diary. It isn't as intimate a diary as, say, Dick Geis’s, but it’s a diary and I like to think I am among The origins of the World Science Fiction Convention in Mel­ friends when I sit down in front of a blank stencil and begin to bourne may be traced back to Hugo Gemsback, Jules Verne, recount the momentous and other events in my life. Mary Shelley — indeed, should you be so inclined, to Lucian Also, Philosophical Gar is about the only place where I write. of Samosata or the Book of Job. But let’s be reasonable about I mean, write. Other people write on paper and get many cents it and say that it's basicallyjohn Foyster’s fault. per word for what they do. Between 8.30 a.m. and 4.51 p.m. I Ten years ago John decided that what Australian fandom probably earn more than they do by correcting what other needed was another convention. There had been at least six people have written on paper. But my writing is very much national conventions before then, but the most recent had confined to what I put on stencil. Most of it, like it or not, goes been the 1958 convention in Melbourne. 'It’s timel’John cried, straight onto that stencil without forethought, and that's what or something to that effect. So in 1966 a motley bunch of you read — unless I think better of it the next day. I also write dedicated fans braved die horrors of the Melbourne SF Club’s letters. Robin Johnson will deny that, but it’s true. Only last primitive clubrooms — an ancient warehouse in Somerset week I wrote three letters. (This week I’m haring a rest.) Place, serviced by a hydraulic lift (the second-last in Mel­ bourne) and infested by rats, Mcrvyn Binns and old movie — (Philosophical Gas 32, August 1975) posters—and proceeded to enjoy themselves hugely and make fannish history. Charles Race Thorson Mathews, foundation member of the Out of that convention came a fanzine called Australian Melbourne Science Fiction Club and Member of Parliament Science Fiction Review, and out of ASFR came more conventions, (let’s get our priorities straight), introduced the ‘notables’ in more clubs, more fanzines ... And here we are. the first official session of the 33rd World Science Fiction The first issue of ASFR, published in June 1966, two months Convention. He omitted to mention that most of Melbourne’s after the convention, featured Brian Aldiss, Michael Moorcock, first fandom bought books and magazines from a shop that was Langdon Jones, John Foyster, John Baxter, Lee Harding, part of the old building pulled down to make way for the Mervyn Binns, Stephen Murray-Smith, Burt Kaufman,Jim Ellis, Southern Cross Hotel, where he was speaking. He also omitted Bob Sessions — even Bernard O’Dowd. Not a bad line-up for a to mention me, but that’s life. After the official opening all of first issue. Since then I’ve published so many fanzines I’ve lost the notables came down from die platform, except Mike Glick- count. ASFR became Scythropvn 1970. In 1968 Leigh Edmonds sohn and Rusty Hevelin. I went up tojoin them for a panel none started ANZAPA and I discovered the joys of publishing apa- of us looked forward to, on ‘How to really enjoy yourself at this zines. My first apazine was The New Millennial Harbinger, which convention’. I met Bob Tucker on his way down from die begat Crogf, which begat Philosophical Gas. Along the line there platform. He looked awful serious. He said ‘God, that’s a cold were The Cosmic Dustbug, Revolting Tales of Sex and Super-Science, audience!’ Cheered me up no end. Bundalohn Quarterly, Lodbrog, Stunned Mullet and others I’ve perhaps mercifully forgotten. Well, Mike and Rusty and I looked out on that cold audi­ ence, and we were worried. I could feel it. So did Mike and In 1966 there was need for a good critical fanzine devoted Rusty: listen to the tape and it shows in what they said. It wasn't to sf. Pete Weston's Zenith (later Speculation) was about the only so much the floodlights that blinded us and made it hard to see fanzine around in this field. In ASFR 14 (February 1968) the people out there: it was mainly that we could see some of Samuel R. Delany wrote: ‘The Review — a number of people them and sense the rest and from what we saw and sensed we around here have started referring to it simply as The Review knew that here were five hundred or so alert, concerned, (indicating that there is no other, perhaps?) — has become one serious-constructive science fiction enthusiasts, along with a few of the more intriguing voices in the dialogue of current sf.' And score fans, and we were expected to tell them how to enjoy so it was. themselves! Good grief! — all that these people wanted, bless One of ASFRs early subscribers, a young schoolteacher their eager young souls, was in-depth talk about Sexism in the named Bruce Gillespie, decided that he wanted to publish a Novels of Samuel R_ Delany or Heinlein’s Concept of the fanzine something like ASFR^ and as he was thinking about this Cultural Elite or the Function of the Third Aorist Pluperfect in I was thinking how much I would like to publish something not the Writing of A. E. Van Vogt — and we were not prepared for so closely bound to sf. Bruce’s SF Commentary therefore picked anything like that. We talked away about fandom and stuff, and up the loose ends of the conversation that ASFR was about to everyone seemed awfully polite but bored. Then I started talk­ drop, and instantly became every bit as intriguing a voice in the ing about Norman Gunston — and I got the first feedback sf dialogue as ASFR had ever been. Happily, Bruce's work anyone experienced at that convention It was incredible. They continues, and SFCis a great fanzine. came alive. They cheered and clapped. After all the foreign talk Bruce and I have won a Ditmar award each, and each been about ‘fandom’ and such, here was someone who spoke their nominated three times for a Hugo. Both of us (for once I tit ink language, even if it wasn’t about science fiction. It was an I can speak on Bruce’s behalf as well as my own) know that we incredible breakthrough. They relaxed. If Aussiecon was a owe what we have achieved, and we have achieved a lot, primar­ success I claim some credit, for establishing a comfortable ily to those friends of ours in fandom who have supported us cultural atmosphere within an hour of the convention’s begin­ by writing articles for us, sending us artwork (which we some­ ning. times use: Australian fanzines are not renowned for their art­ Ben Indick... asked me to write a great report on the 33rd work, and given half a chance at this convention we’ll tell you

34 Berry and Carey Handfield (heavily disguised in a Nebraska accent) slipped in before I could slam the door. I still don’t know who the other forty-four were. Either I imagined them or they went home. We sat around and talked and had a few drinks for a few hours, then went to bed. It was 11.30 p.m. and we’d all had enough. I slept fitfully. I kept on having nightmares about Susan Wood and John Berry being in our house, and forty-two faceless fans milling about our front garden, sullenly cheering the efforts of Jack Chalker and Bob Tucker to slip down our chimney simultaneously. On Friday morning I swept all the bottles, food scraps, fanzines, cats etc. into a neat pile in the loungeroom where Sally would find them without any trouble when she came home from work, and noticed while doing this a figure resembling Carey Handfield asleep in the room. I poured myself a stiff coffee. The figure roused itself. It now looked like Carey Hand­ field in pajamas, which further alarmed me. Fans don’t wear pajamas. I poured myself another stiff coffee, and Carey came back into the room and asked if he could have some. ‘Hand­ field,’ I said, 'is it true that you are here in my loungeroom in pajamas?' ‘It is,’ he said. ‘Is it possible that Susan Wood and John Berry are somewhere in this house?’ I asked politely. ‘They are,' he said. I opened a bottle. I forget exactly what we all did that day, apart from talking a lot and walking all over town looking for string, post offices and toy koalas and having lunch about 3 and driving up Mount Ainslic to look at Canberra. Ah, It’s coming back to me now. We found this bloke up Mount Ainslie who’d locked his keys in his car, and I said I'd ring the NRMA when we got back down. John Bangsund starring, and John Litchen directing, in I did. They asked me for his membership number, and I said the Canberra segment of the second Aussiecon he's locked his card in the car; they asked me for the car’s promotion film. registration number, and I said I’d forgotten to note it. The NRMA bloke sort of sighed and said he would send a service van up the mountain real soon. I suspect he didn’t really believe me. If you’re ever up Mount Ainslie and you see this bloke looking hungry and confused outside a brownish Ford Escort, World Science Fiction Convention — not just for him, of would you mind telling him I rang the NRMA for him? Ta. course, but for all seventeen of those wonderful people who About 5 we sent Carey out to the airport to pick up Mike read and enjoy my stuff. Well, let me tell you that the moment Glicksohn and Sheryl Birkhead. I didn't believe he would come I arrived home from Melbourne I started writing my report. I back with them, especially since I'd given him a map of wrote eight pages about the trip back from Melbourne. They're Waukegan, Illinois, instead of Canberra, ACT, but he did. I around somewhere. I never quite got to writing about what keep on forgetting that Burley Griffin came from Illinois. happened during the five or six days before that. I recall, Suddenly we had a house full of fans, and I felt a strange sense however, that it was a most pleasant and hectic experience. Oh, of deja vu. (That’s Latin for ‘When does this convention end!’) and far too many people, too — I should mention that — over About 9 we were all miles away in the depths of sinful New six hundred at times, so I’m told. ‘It’s an anomaly,'John Berry South Wales, eating unpronouncable Yugoslavian food at one told me, that last night at the tomato sauce tasting, and he of my favourite little restaurants in Queanbeyan. Askjohn Berry should know. Actually he could have told me anything and I what the stuff was called: he made a note of it. It wasn’t would have burst into sobs as I did then, on hearing my cevapcici, alas, but at least John achieved one of his other favourite tomato sauce or favourite worldcon — I’m not sure ambitions: we had a 1966 Kaiser Stuhl J426 (and a few other which he meant, and it doesn’t matter — described as an distinguished Australian reds that just happened to be lying anomaly. That night, less than half an hour before I lurched about the place). When we rolled home we found a note under into Leigh Edmonds’ wretched pie-and-saucc party, I had taken die door that confirmed my fond imaginings of the previous my leave of Ursula, and that's when the convention ended. evening. I quote: *Ve vas here but you vas not, so it goes. We are 'Come again,’ I said to her. She said ‘I'd love to,’ dial's all, and at the Lytham Flag Inn. Ned Brooks, Chalker, Stu Tait, Joan the lights changed, there on the comer of Bourke and Exhibi­ Serrano,Jake Waldman.’ We consulted maps of Canberra (and tion Streets, and I walked away from her to the Southern Cross Waukegan, Toronto, Vancouver and Gaithersburg) and could mausoleum, to Edmonds’ pie night, and John Berry sitting find no place called Lytham Flag, or even Lytham, so we there talking about this anomaly, the last of the small world- decided it was all a hoax and got down to some more serious cons. talking and drinking. Saturday morning: a bright, sunny, unseasonable Canberra About 10.30 p.m. on Thursday 21 August I dreamt a crazy day. Beside me on the back steps isjohn Berry. We are drinking drcam about forty-seven American fans ringing our doorbell. Guinness and there is between us a profound sense of commun­ Sally nudged me ever so gently and said ‘There are forty-seven ion, of mutual fondness and respect, of wonder, of well-being American fans at the door!’ I woke up sufficiently to put on my and hangover. We do not speak. Behind us, on the porch, Carey VIP dressing-gown before going to the door and switching on and Mike are playing table tennis. Occasionally one of them a few lights. Blinking at the assembled throng, I remarked in steps in the cats' food and there is a polite, gentlemanly oath my most hospitable manner ‘Don't stand out there in the cold. muttered. Sheryl, Susan and Sally are on the lawn before us, Go home!' Ignoring this polite imperative, Susan Wood,John

35 i - z.

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Aussiecon I: a great convention! (From left to right) Leigh Edmonds, Lee Harding, Sally Yeoland, John Bangsund.

playing with the cats and talking lady talk. If fandom did not I’m sorry I didn’t vote for her; the musty corridors of power exist I think to myself, it would need to be invented, if only for could do with some fans of her capacity. Rosemarie is one of idyllic moments like this. my trusty unsung collators; she learnt the art two years ago by During the afternoon we all sat around listening to an helping Sally put the Campbell book together While I super­ incredible record sent me by Rune Forsgrcn, a Swedish fan. If vised, yes.) Twelve isn't a large number for a party, but even so you see this, Rune, we would like you to know that we loved we split into at least three sub-parties before long, with sercon Lundstcn’s NordiskNalursymfoni nr. 1. Thank you for sending it fandom in the living-room, fannish fandom in the diningroom to me, and I promise to write real soon now. and dish-washing fandom in the kitchen. 1 dimly recall talking Then some of us went off and invaded the Private Cellar until all hours with Bobby and Rosemarie in myjunk-room (or Club (the only liquor business ever to have its stock list in study, as I sometimes call it) long after the others had departed FAP A?), where I picked up a few dozen bottles to replenish my or gone to bed. dwindling post-convention stores, and Mike failed to convince Sunday was sad. We didn't want all these wonderful people the cellar-master of the virtues of Canadian wines. Susan was to go. There were hugs, kisses and wild promises all round (‘See back at 4 Hartley Street, writing her con report for Locus, and you in Kansas City!' for example), and Don Fitch appeared in Sally was there too, wondering whether she was cooking the far distance just in time for all of us to wave to him. (He had enough beef Stroganoff and kitsch lorraine (in France it's stayed at the Canberra Youth Hostel A man of great fortitude, called quiche lorraine, I know, but we only have the Australian is Don.) Then Carey,John and Susan set off for Sydney, Robin, stuff) to feed seven. Mike, John, Sheryl and Carey agreed with Fred and Don for a quick tour of the Snowy Mountains, and me that we should drive up to Red Hill to look at Canberra from Sheryl, Mike, Sally and I for the airport. I hate leave-takings, the back end, but the Renault (which has a mind of its own) and shall gloss over our feelings at this time. Fred and Robin developed a flat tyre, so we didn't. stayed with us that night, and we learnt a lot about all kinds of We were just about to settle down to dinner when Robin things we never knew we were interested in Johnson, Fred Patten and Don Fitch arrived. Sally panicked, of On Monday, confident that the last North Americans had course, but I knew we could rely on her lovely heavy hand. Most dribbled out of Canberra, we found ourselves dead tired and of the ten of us had second helpings. /Xbout 8 we were joined attempting to play host to Grace and Don Lundry. A delightful by Bobby Saxby and Rosemarie Bell. (Ms Saxby stood unsuc­ couple they arc, too, and we enjoyed their company. I forgive cessfully for the local Assembly election some months ago, and them readily if they did not enjoy ours: we were not exactly at

36 our sparkling best by then. This was also the first time I had actually experi­ On Wednesday I came down again with the dreaded Can­ enced sexism in the public service. When I first berra lurgi with galloping irrits. On Thursday Sally conducted her first marriage ceremony. It is now Sunday 31 August and started in April 1970, I was treated exactly the the 33rd World Science Fiction Convention seems a long way same as the males and promoted at exactly the in the past. If only I could get over the lingering suspicion that same rate, so it came as a bit of a shock. The Don Fitch is still out there at the hostel, and that forty-seven Registrar-General, who was a fellow in his early American fans who missed the flight are going to ring our sixties, didn't want me to use the office car. Now doorbell tonight. this was rather ridiculous, as at least 50 per cent of the marriages were performed at locations away — (Stunned Mullet'i, November 1975) from the office, so of course I needed to use the car. The office cars were parked in the basement I suppose the thing I remember the most about of the National Mutual building, and like most the Worldcon was just before it, when Ursula Le office basements there were pillars that one had Guin arrived in Australia. I remember being ter­ to try to avoid. At that stage I’d had a licence for ribly nervous because she was coming to stay for nearly eight years and had driven to Melbourne a night on 1 August, after spending a day or so in and Sydney quite frequently, so I wasn’t in­ Sydney with Nancy Keesing, and I had no idea experienced. However, he would only agree if I got what I was going to say to a famous author, let one of the guys to go downstairs with me and let alone one I hadn’t even read! She turned out to him guide me out of the carpark! Imagine getting be an absolutely charming and delightful person. away with something like that now! My male She gave us a book of her poetry entitled Wild colleagues thought this was pretty ridiculous, Angels, inscribed ’For Sally and John most affec­ and pretended to the Registrar-General that tionately from the Instant Collapsing Guest’. that’s what they would do. but never did. Ursula was very tired when John picked her up The job itself turned out to be the most inter­ from the airport, and at our place all she wanted esting that I’d had up to that stage. Usually there to do was sleep, which she did all afternoon. What were at least 6-10 marriages on Fridays and we didn’t know at the time was how nervous she Saturdays, and the occasional one on a Sunday. was about coming to the Worldcon. As it got towards the warmer months of the year, John came down to Melbourne several days people favoured the Botanical Gardens and before the Worldcon and I flew down on Thursday, various other garden sites and spots on the edge 14 August. We both stayed at the Southern Cross, of Lake Burley Griffin. In those days you had to probably the only time we have actually stayed at fill out a notice of intended marriage and lodge it the same hotel a convention was being held at. I at least a month before the date. Then the couple recall the introduction to the Worldcon on 14 had to come into the office for a pre-marriage August, with the music by Bruce Smeaton, which counselling session before the marriage took was quite spectacular. I found Ursula’s guest of place. This was a fairly simple interview, with the honour speech on Thursday night extremely im­ idea of establishing that the intendeds were two pressive. It was typical of her that she thanked consenting adults! I enjoyed the job at the time, Robin and the con-committee ’and most of all not because I thought people should get married, John Bangsund, for thinking of this whole silly but because I liked the contact with the public, idea in the first place'. She talked about the walls instead of doing a desk job. as I had previously being down in respect of people reading and been doing. The only occasion I had a problem accepting science fiction. However, she also cau­ with this was when a fellow turned up for his tioned that there were still lots of walls ‘to be wedding ceremony with a black eye and his rela­ reduced to rubble’. She also discussed the tives were concerned that the person who’d given scarcity of women in sf ‘in the literature, among him the black eye was going to turn up at the the fans, and most of all among the writers’. I have ceremony, which didn’t happen. some recollection, but only just, of John being On another occasion, two people from toastmaster at the Banquet and David Grigg being Immigration came in to be interviewed and were the awards committee. I have very vague memo­ a bit alarmed to see me, as they were trying to ries of panels etc, but found it all very interesting keep their intended marriage a secret from their meeting the large number of overseas fans at the workmates and thought I might pass on the Worldcon and afterwards. information. One of my ex-boyfriends turned up The reason for my hazy memory is probably one day with his intended and got a surprise to because at the beginning of August I had just see me. Another time, one of John’s exes turned changed jobs from the Immigration Department up with her intended to get married. to Births, Deaths and Marriages and part of my One of the more unusual marriage ceremonies job was to marry people. My new boss had mar­ I carried out was on board a ferry which used to ried John and me in March 1974. It was the first go around the Lake for tourists. That was a very time they had a female doing the job and I wanted pleasant occasion, and as I didn’t have any more to prove that I could do the job as well as any male.

37 marriages to perform that evening, I joined in the of Great Britain: New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, celebrations. That was a very pleasant side of the Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia (what we now call the Northern Territory was then part of South Australia). The job. Carrying out marriage ceremonies must be a Old Queen graciously consented to the federation of the six bit like delivering babies. The people involved feel colonics as 'the Commonwealth of Australia’; the tariffs and very happy and usually treat you like part of the customs duties between the colonies were abolished; the colo­ family, so there were many occasions when I was nies became the states; and Australia, the very first new nation asked to stay on and celebrate with them, which of the twentieth century, got its very first Governor-General. I usually did on a Friday night or at the weekend, There was a Constitution, too, and two Federal Houses of if I didn’t have any more ceremonies to cany out Parliament. Her Majesty’s powers in this new country, vested in the office of her representative, the Governor-General, were that day. more or less understood, but to a large extent not exactly People weren’t quite as innovative with their defined in the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers had rather locations as they probably are now. but one day more important things to think about at the time, so they didn't I had a call from someone wanting to know if I’d even bother to say things in die Constitution about the powers perform a ceremony on a hang-glider! We even got and functions of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, for to the stage of naming a time and date, before the example; in fact, they weren’t even mentioned. person on the other end of the phone took it a bit On the other hand, the rights of the new states were pretty well provided for. The ’upper house’, the new Australian too far and I realised they’d been put up to it. I Senate (modelled loosely on the British House of Lords), was am not very keen about heights and am not sure to be ‘the states’ house’. Each state, regardless of population, whether I’d ever feel comfortable about flying in a size or anything else, was to have the same number of senators. small plane or a helicopter, let alone hang-gliding! In many ways this was quite an admirable idea: it would stop the A good friend of mine was quite aware of this and big states of New South Wales and Victoria from imposing their decided to test me out. will on poor littic Tasmania and poor enormous Western Aus­ Registering births, deaths and marriages was tralia, for example. But it didn’t work out that way. The Senate was also to be a ’house of review’, where older and wiser heads relatively straightforward and so was producing could consider the latest nonsense sent up from the House of certified copies of the registers except on the odd Representatives, especially in the light of the various states’ occasion when we all had great difficulty deci­ interests and concerns, and send it back for amendment if it phering handwritten entries in some of the older were unseemly. It didn’t work out that way cither. The Senate registers. I can recall an older well-spoken lady rapidly became a political House, where questions were de­ ringing up and complaining to me at one stage cided not on how they might affect the states, but on simple because we’d got her occupation wrong. I can party lines. And so the Senate became either a rubber stamp (if its party majority reflected the majority in the Reps) or an recall checking with a couple of colleagues before obstruction and a pain in the arse (if it didn’t). the copy of her marriage certificate went out. We Enter the Australian Labor Party — and I’m not about to all agreed that ’trained horse’ must mean ‘horse give you a history of the labour movement and the trade union trainer’, a rather odd occupation for a woman, but movement in this country. If you are interested you can look it nevertheless these were liberated times. She was up. By 1949, that is just forty-nine years after Australia started. very indignant and didn’t agree with us, because Labor had enjoyed sixteen years in office. During the late 1940s the Senate was absolutely dominated by Labor: only one senator she was a trained nurse, a much more worthy was not a Labor representative. This was patently unfair, so occupation in her eyes! We also had the classic (mainly due to the efforts of Arthur Calwell, Gough Whitlam’s situation of the wrong body in the wrong place for immediate predecessor as leader of the Parliamentary Labor a funeral. Nothing too drastic as far as we were Party) the proportional voting system was introduced for the concerned, with one body at Albury instead of Senate, resulting diereaftcr in a Senate that more nearly Canberra and vice versa, and not our fault but reflected in its composition the party preferences of (he Aus­ the undertakers’. However, the relatives of both tralian electorate.... Australian senators normally remain in office for six years. parties weren’t too impressed about the whole Every three years, usually when elections are held for the House thing, which I can quite understand. of Representatives, half of the senators complete their term of When we moved to Adelaide, several of our office and must stand for re-election. At present there are 62 friends were keen to have me marry them, but I senators — ten each from the states and two (courtesy of the realised that I didn’t really want to apply to ALP, as of December 1975) from the Australian Capital Terri­ become a marriage celebrant again, as I would tory. have had to do, as the celebrant bit stayed with The Senate cannot initiate any money bills. Il can return any bill to the House of Reps with requested amendments, but the public service position. It was a novelty while the Reps need not accept the amendments. It can reject bills. I was doing it in Canberra, but not something that Since a bill must be agreed to by the Reps, die Senate and the I wanted to continue doing. Crown to become an Act, it becomes obvious that die passing of a bill by the Reps is just the first step. However, if the Senate Terry Hughes, over there in Arlington, Virginia, where it’s all rejects any bill twice within a stipulated time, the Prime Minister happening, wrote to me nearly eleven months ago and asked may ask the Crown (that is, the Governor-General) for a disso­ ‘What’s happening in Australia!’ I think I am just about ready lution of both houses and a general election. If the new Senate to answer his question now. still rejects that bill, the Prime Minister may call for ajoint sitting Until the first day of the present century ‘Australia’ was a of bodi houses. geographical name only. Politically it meant nothing, for until In December 1972 a Labor government was elected, the first 1 January 1901 there were six separate self-governing colonies time since 1949. The first Whidam Ministry consisted of Gough

38 Whitlam and Lance Barnard: between them they controlled Then a very eminent Labor senator, Lionel Murphy, was every government department. People have written about appointed to the High Court of Australia. And that’s when President Kennedy's ‘first hundred days', but in Australia we things started going wrong. still remember, some of us, Gough Whitlam’s first hundred When a senator resigns or dies, it is normal for the Premier hours. Among other things, many other things, in those first of the state he represents to appoint someone of the same hundred hours Wliitlam withdrew Australian troops from Viet­ political party to fill his place. Tom Lewis, the Liberal Premier nam, abolished conscription and granted recognition to Mao's of New South Wales, appointed an ‘independent’ to fill Mur­ China (a government that had been in power for 23 years, just phy's place. Now, let’s give credit where credit’s due: Cleaver like the Liberals in Australia). Those were heady days, especially Bunton, the man appointed by Lewis, proved to be quite for a Labor voter of long standing employed by the Parliamen­ independent I think he was generally regarded around Parlia­ tary Reporting Service in Canberra, which is what I was then. ment House as a man of great integrity, dignity, honour and a Sir Harold Wilson (or Mr Wilson, as 1 prefer to think of him) lot of other qualities, including courage and wisdom perhaps. has recently published a book in which he comments on some But Lewis went against all convention in appointing him. peculiar aspects of Australian government. One of them is that Then a Labor senator died — dear old Bertie Milliner. Not the Labor members of Parliament — the Caucus — conduct a a great intellect, perhaps, but a good man, and a man highly long and exhaustive ballot to decide which of them shall be regarded around Parliament House, with many friends. The Ministers. The Prime Minister then has to accept these mem­ Premier of Queensland, Johannes Bjclke-Petcrsen, with much bers, like it or not, whether they have the ability or not, and glee appointed in his place a man named Albert (‘call me Pat’) make a Ministry out of them. (The Liberals and their friends Field. Albert Field presented himself as a half-wit and a dupe. just elect the man they want as PM and let him choose his own You watched him on television, talking about his landlady, his Ministers from members and senators.) I mention this to ex­ favourite reading matter (westerns), his reception by Labor plain the reference to ‘the first Wliitlam Ministry'. Wliitlam senators (‘I dunno, I just followed the bloke with the mace. I acted immediately, before Caucus could choose his Ministers didn’t notice really'), his outspoken remarks about pornogra­ for him, in those first few days, and there are probably some phy, permissiveness and homosexuality (nothing in particular: who still haven’t forgiven him for that. Between 1972 and 1975 he was just against them), and you thought he was an idiot. He many Australians found things they could not forgive Gough wasn't. The man was at least twice as smart as he appeared to Whitlam for, and the reason for this (I believe) is fairly simple. be on television, which made him about as smart as most Australians generally do not have enough knowledge or expe­ members of Parliament. And he brought down the Whitlam rience to judge rightly whether an exceptional man is excep­ government. tionally good or exceptionally bad, so to be on the safe side they You ask me, Terry, what's happening in Australia. I can’t reject any exceptional man. Gough Whitlam is an exceptional answer that. But right now I can say that the Labor government, man. Even those who admire him most wonder at times elected in May 1974, was brought down in 1975 by two men: whether he knows what he is doing. Senator Albert Field, a small-time former union official with a The Whitlam government had a good majority in the House big-time hate for the Australian Labor Party, and Premier of Representatives, but did not control the Senate, mainly Bjelke-Pctcrsen of Queensland, a man who governs the second- because half of the senators still had three years to go, and were biggest state of Australia on behalf of less than 30 per cent of therefore not subject to the election. So, right from the start, his state’s voters. the Wliitlam government had a hostile Senate. In less than You will excuse me, perhaps, if I sound a little emotional eighteen months the Opposition in the Senate had knocked about the whole business now and then. What I am writing back about half of Labor s bills. Billy Snedden, Leader of the about is the closest parallel in /Xustralia's history to the assassi­ Opposition in the Reps, was tempted to "block supply’ — that nation ofJohn Kennedy, or of Salvador Allende. is, to have the Senate reject the government's Budget for (The only Australian politician I know of who has been 197-1-75. Whitlam asked for a double dissolution, on this and nearly assassinated was Arthur Calwell. A great man, old Arthur, other grounds, to which he was entitled, and the Governor- an outstanding minister in the Chifley government, leader of General (Sir John Kerr, an old-time Labor man, appointed by the ALP (for just a little too long) in his later years. When I met Wliitlam) granted it. him in 1966 he was a foot taller than I expected, and he was So there was an election in May 1974. Again Labor won, but grey. I can't quite describe it, but he looked as though he had with a smaller majority, and still without control of the Senate theatrical makeup on, as though his face were made of ash. Not (even though Labor received about 200,000 more votes than long after I met him, someone fired on him in Canberra. In his all the other parties combined in the Senate election). For the latter days he appeared in parliament on crutches.) first time in Australia’s history there was a joint sitting of the After Albert Field’s appointment the numbers in the Senate Senate and the House of Representatives. We saw it all on were: Labor, 27; anti-Labor, 29; Independent, 4. Even allowing television (another first). Since Labor had more members for the semi-independence of two of the independents, Labor overall than the Opposition, it won all the divisions and passed was short of a majority in the Upper House. some important legislation. The Budget was presented in 1975, in August, as usual, Then it was back to normal. Billy Snedden was axed by his Unemployment was high, and the inflation rate was higher, party, and Malcom Fraser became the Liberal-Country Party Gough Whitlam can spout figures until the cows come home coalition’s sixth leader in seven years, and the Senate settled (he has a fabulous memory), and he was certainly concerned back to block as much of Whitlam’s legislation as it could. with inflation, but his first priority, his overriding concern, was The new Senate in 1974 consisted of 29 Labor senators and with what people call 'quality of life’ and the right of all 31 anti-Labor. Two of the anti-Labor senators were officially Australians to enjoy it. This mid-term Budget was aimed at a listed as 'independent', and one of them (Steele Hall, a former delicate balance between the way the economy works and what premier of South Australia and something of an idealist) often Australians need and want and deserve. Short of a revolution, actually did act independently, which gave Labor something this is what a Labor Prime Minister must aim for, after all. close, but not close enough, to an evenly divided Senate. Later, The 1975 Budget was not rejected by the Senate, but ‘de­ both of the 'independents' rejoined the Liberal Party. (If you ferred’. For eight weeks or so the Senate kept on deferring wonder why I chose the expression ‘anti-Labor’, rather than go consideration of the Budget, and gradually government depart­ into the names and numbers of the other parties, that little note ments started running out of money. That’s why we public may serve as an explanation.) servants were getting a bit worried about this time last year.

39 Early on Remembrance Day, 11 November, Whitlam Docs that surprise you at all? Do you really think of Australia advised the leaders of the opposition parties that he would call as a monarchy? I will confess to you that until recently I had a half-Senate election unless the Budget was passed. After a never thought of Australia as being a monarchy; I had thought conference with his senior colleagues, Fraser told Whitlam that of my country as a 'commonwealth' — which I considered to the Senate would not pass the bills. At 10 a.m. Whitlam made be for all practical purposes a republic, but with ceremonial an appointment to sec the Governor-General. The House of royal trimmings. I had not read the Australian Constitution. Representatives sat from 11.45 to 1 p.m. At 12.45 Fraser left the The opening words of the Constitution arc ‘The legislative House and, unknown to Whitlam, who left five minutes later, power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal went to Government House. When Whitlam arrived there was Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen, a Senate and a no sign of Fraser: even his car had been parked somewhere out House of Representatives’; the next few sentences have to do of sight. At 1.15 Sirjohn Kerr handed Whitlam a letter in which with the Governor-General ‘or such person as the Queen may he dismissed him and his government, and attached to the appoint to administer the Government of the Commonwealth'; letter was a statement of his reasons for taking this action. and clause 5 says quite clearly, without qualification, that ‘The Whitlam had no prior intimation of Kerr’s intention. At 1.30 Governor-General may appoint such times for holding the Kerr swore Fraser in as Prime Minister. sessions of Parliament as he thinks fit, and may also from time A few minutes later I came back from lunch and my boss to time, by Proclamation or otherwise, prorogue the Parlia­ said ’Whitlam’s been sacked!’ I didn’t believe him, but some­ ment, and may in like manner dissolve the House of Repre­ one had a radio, and wc all listened to it, and it was all true. At sentatives.’ 2.30 we heard Frascr announce the news officially to the House. What’s happening in Australia, Terry, is that a lot of people There was a certain amount of debate on the subject, most of are going back to read the rules, and thinking it's time some of it sounding like the kind of debate you can hear any night in them were changed. I don't care much whether Australia ever any good rowdy pub. Fraser moved that the House adjourn, and formally becomes a republic or not. I don't care much whether his motion was defeated, naturally. It was announced that the the ceremonial head of state is called Queen, Governor- Senate had passed the Budget and adjourned. Whitlam moved General, Chairman, President or Grand Cham. But the execu­ that the House had no confidence in the caretaker government tive head of state should be the person elected as such by the of the honourable member for Wannon (Fraser) and that the people. member for Werriwa (Whitlam) be called upon to form a When I published some remarks last December about the government. The motion was passed. I said to my boss, almost election, a few people disputed my use of the expression ‘death beside myself at the brilliance, the sheer audacity of the thing, of democracy', and I now retract that expression. Until we start ‘Did you hear that! The cunning bastard! It's incredible: the electing our Governor-General, or until he is stripped of his Budget is passed and Gough Whitlam is Prime Minister again!’ executive powers, 1 will maintain that officially democracy never My enthusiasm and sheer logic convinced him. I rang Sally and existed in Australia. told her. Some of us may live to thank Sirjohn Kerr for effectively And I was absolutely wrong. beginning the overthrow of the Australia monarchy. But even At 3.16 the Speaker of the House of Representatives asked if I live that long, I will never forgive him for dismissing one of for an appointment with Kerr, to advise him of the House’s the truly great leaders Australia has had, nor, by so doing, for decision. He was told he could not see Kerr until 4.45. At 4.50, wrecking the greatest program for social reform this country on my way home from work, I heard on the car radio the has ever embarked upon. proclamation by the Governor-General’s secretary from the steps of Parliament House that Parliament had been pro­ — {Philosophical Gas 35, November 1976) rogued, and that Fraser had been appointed Prime Minister until elections could be held. I suppose what surprised me when rereading I still don't believe iL The government had not run out of John’s piece about 11 November 1975 is how money on 11 November. After the Budget was passed, the House called on the Governor-General to reinstate Whitlam as much I had forgotten, particularly the time Prime Minister, and the House was ignored. The fact that I vote sequence of the day. I thought that Kerr’s secre­ Labor, the fact that the most powerful interests in the country tary read out the proclamation at lunchtime that wanted Whitlam out and had convinced the public that he day, but that was when the media first knew that should go, the fact that Fraser won the election in December Whitlam had been sacked. I’d forgotten just how easily— these things ultimately are peripheral to me. So is the much John and I were affected by all this at the fact that with 53 per cent of the vote at the election, the anti-Labor coalition won 91 of the 127 seats in the House of time and how close we were to the whole thing. Representatives. So is the fact that while Australia was distracted I realise that nothing has been changed in the and virtually helpless to do anything about it, Indonesia in­ Constitution to stop it from happening again. I vaded and annexed East Timor. All these things are worth tend to agree with what John says and that is if discussing, and relevant, but not central to my concern here. we have to continue being a monarchy and having What happened on 11 November last year is pretty clear: a Governor-General, then it should be someone the spirit of seventy-five years of political development in this who is elected by the public and not appointed by country was set aside for the letter of the Constitution. Sirjohn Kerr was perfectly entitled to sack the elected government of the Prime Minister. Australia, just as the Senate was perfectly entitled to block supply and Bjelke-Peterson to appoint Albert Field. They did AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS 1975: not break the rules — they merely used them, to break a KRUGER SWEEPS THE BOARD! government Now that it has been done, it can be done again, and probably will be done again. Kruger? Kruger is a young German short-haired pointer who Sirjohn Kerr has said in recent weeks that he is not in favour of lives with our friends Cathy and Robert up the road. He comes Australia becoming a republic (which is about as newsworthy as die to our place to see his little friends Dylan and Donovan, and Pope's opinion dial the Vatican should remain Catholic), and that Dylan and Donovan go to his place to see him, and they lick Australia will still be a monarchy a hundred years from now. each other all over and claw each other a bit, and it's all rather

40 touching actually, if a little obscene at times. I don't think cats Robert and two other friends working as park and dogs were meant to be friends like that, but they’re young yet, all of them. rangers. They moved to Canberra in the early On election night, about 9, Kruger and Cathy and Robert seventies, and we lived next door to them when came to our place to watch the death of democracy, live, on we moved to Hartley Street, Turner in 1974. We television. Cathy had made a pavlova, and I had found an had two Christmases with them. They invited us interesting sautemes to go with it, but basically we didn’t feel in for a crayfish and champagne breakfast in much like eating, so it was a bit of a waste. 1974 and then again in 1975, when John’s The first figures to go up on the board were from Casey, the mother was staying with us. The 1975 one was outer-suburban Melbourne scat held by Race Mathews, and probably the best and I have to admit that I don’t Robert and I looked at those figures and groaned. Early figures invariably favour Labor, and Race was way behind. We opened remember very much of the day after breakfast. I another bottle or three. By 9.30 it was pretty obvious that Labor recall going back to our place to put a turkey in was in real trouble, and Robert and I were groaning so much the oven, but I think John’s mother supervised that Kruger started whining in sympathy. Sally and Cathy got most of its cooking, as I was pretty inebriated by sick of us and politics, and started playing scrabble. They set up lunchtime. It was great fun, joined in by Kruger, the board on the floor, and got down there and flung four-letter Poxy (the father of Dylan) and our two cats. We words at each other and talked lady talk and so on, while we knew at this stage that John had got a job with kept watching the board at the tally room and groaning and opening more bottles. At about 10.30 when Robert and I had Rigby’s and that we’d be moving sometime in decided to emigrate to South Africa (since they don't even January to Adelaide. Cathy and Robert stayed pretend to fair elections there), Kruger became restless and with us on one of their visits to Adelaide, and wagged his tail a bit and yawned. His tail neatly wiped all the brought an injured wedge-tailed eagle, which they pieces from the scrabble board. had found lying on the side of the road. They both Shall I set up another game? said Cathy, without enthusi­ had a great love of animals which they demon­ asm. No, said Sally. After a few more drinks we ail parted strated in all sorts of practical ways. company, Kruger still yawning and scratching his private appendages. I stayed up to the bitter end, watching Australia’s 23 February 1976 ... Some time about early November last year finest hour expire, live, on television. I wrote to Rigby Ltd, publishers, of Adelaide, applying for the The last elected Liberal Prime Minister, John Gorton, was position of paperback editor (as advertised in the local morning interviewed. The ‘overwhelming response of the public' was newspaper). Someone's lines got twisted. Before I knew quite mentioned. Said John Grey Gorton, independent candidate for what I’d done, or was doing, I was being interviewed by Mike the Senate: 'The overwhelming response of the public was Page, Rigby’s publishing manager, for a position as his assistant wrong!'Jim Cairns, former Deputy Prime Minister, was inter­ and eventual successor. When he rang me at the Australian viewed. 'No government can remain in office that displeases Government Publishing Service (Publishing Standards and the media,' he said. And 'We must be more radical.' Design Section), I thought for a few moments that he must be Noel Norton, one of the ABC’s political experts engaged for a salesman from Rigby's who happened to be passing through the occasion, laid the wreath on International Women's Year. Canberra. Then his name rang a bell somewhere, I looked up ‘It is a sad thing’, he said, ‘that women were contesting marginal back issues of the Australian Booksfllerwe had in the library, and seats.' And it is. There will be even fewer women in the next I realized that he was the Michael F. Page, author of novels, Australian Parliament than the last. Four, out of 189 members award-winning editor of other books, and publishing manager and senators. Now there are two, I think, maybe three — Labor at Rigby’s. I forget how we arranged it, but somehow Sally got lost two and gained one, so maybe it’s three. a clean suit and tie to me, and about lunchtime I met Mike on On the latest figures for the House of Representatives, the the steps of the National Library. He immediately discounted Liberal Party has 69 seats, the Labor Party has 33 seats, and the the idea that he should be interviewing me for the job of National Country Party 22 seats. Three seats are still undecided, paperback editor; obviously, he said, whatever I had applied but likely to go to the Liberals. An overwhelming victory for the for, the firm must have felt I was worth interviewing for die job Liberal/NCP coalition, yes. No doubt of that. Probably 94 seats as his assistant (the advertisement for which I hadn't seen). We to Labor’s 33: an undisputed victory. And yet... Labor got 43 talked for an hour, and he said he’d let me know. A few days per cent of the votes, the Liberals got 42 per cent, the NCP 11 later he rang me at work and said that Rigby really needed per cent. You do the arithmetic, and when you’ve done it, please someone with more experience that I have for thatjob, but that tell me why Australia is called a democratic country, and why he could offer me a position as general editor. Before he could the election result is called a landslide victory for the coalition. even name die miserable salary (by public service standards) I Remember, please, that in Australia voting is compulsory. had accepted. And here I am. Editing Frank McManus, won­ When all is said, the important thing to remember about dering what I'm doing here. this election is that it was unnecessary. Any Australian govern­ I hesitate to say this, knowing my audience, but... I like my ment is most unpopular halfway through its three years in job. Truly. It doesn’t stop me wondering why I'm here, when I office; this is a fact of political life. Labor's loss was inevitable. could be back in Canberra, unemployed because of Malcolm Australia's loss is in- calculable. However contrived, the sacking Fraser's policy of sacking public servants who aren't quite of a Prime Minister by a Governor-General in this country has public servants (as I was), and some who are (as Sally was until set us back 75 years. We arc still a colony, after all this time. That last Friday). Maybe something deep down warned me that I might suit the media proprietors, but to me the whole business would be one of the first victims of the so-called Liberal govern­ is tragic. ment (apart from Robert Heinlein, our new Prime Minister is the only person in a position of power I know of who has — (Slunnrd Mullti 4, January 1976) admitted to being a disciple of Ayn Rand; not that it mattered — he could have mentioned Ben Bova, A. J. Liebling or Cathy and Robert were the best neighbours we’ve Thomas Love Peacock, for all the great Australian public cared) ever had. They were both from Adelaide and had and prompted me to talk my way into a job in Adelaide, where spent some time living in South Africa, with it doesn't cost as much to be poor as it does in Canberra. I leave

41 such premonitional-adventitious-psychic speculation to my I drove to Norwood post office, where I stood around for younger or more impressionable readers. If you reckon it was half an hour and eventually got a postal address. I came out, my stars did it, I don’t believe you. I have no time for astrology’. my arm throbbing in the 35-degree heat, and I saw a chemist’s Nor does any other Taiwan I know. shop opposite me on one corner, and the Norwood pub on the other. I bought some ludicrous sunburn lotion at the former, On Tuesday 6 January, a little after midday, I found myself in and wearing it, spent an hour or so in the latter. die little speck on the map of New South Wales called Grong My first love in Adelaide, chronologically, this time round, Grong. This was fortunate, since I’d driven some miles out of is the Norwood pub. I walked in there with my arm (up to my my way to look at the place. Whatever Grong Grong may have earlobe) bathed in that white gunk, ordered a gin and tonic, been in the past or may become, it is enshrined in the memory and sat down, and no-one in the place gave any sign of giving of those aspiring writers who took part in Ursula Le Guin’s a damn. I drank a silent toast to Adelaide, to Robin Johnson, writers’ workshop before the 1975 World Science Fiction Con­ and to Australians everywhere who don’t give a damn what you vention in Melbourne, and I have no doubt, in Ursula’s. I wasn’t look like in a pub. at the workshop, worse luck, but enough had been said about By Friday I had leased a house in the hills (or Mount Lofty Grong Grong during the Worldcon to make me plan a round­ Ranges, if you want to be pedantic about it), something they about route to Adelaide that would allow me to make this said couldn't be done, but a small thing really, of little account, pilgrimage. to we Sons of Analog and Coining Rulers of the Sevagram. The It was worth it. Grong Grong is the quintessential no­ house I chose is a modest little place with three bedrooms, two account Australian country town. In its total lack of importance bathrooms, a passable lounge and diningroom, and a ‘family’ to anyone who lives anywhere else, Grong Grong stands as die room (ideal for one’s sf collection). It's OK. Overpriced, of symbol and archetype of science fiction fans and writers every­ course, but it’s OK. It’s just about big enough for Sally and me, where. and the cats, and our books and things, and our few sticks of Because I’d gone some miles out of my way, and because furniture. When we arranged our stuff about the place there the Falcon we’d foolishly bought kept on flooding its stupid was one wall left absolutely blank and wasted, except for the carburettor, I spent the first night at Hay, instead of Tooleybuc. picture window in it, so we bought a piano to go there. Now it’s This was unfortunate. I’d drafted an article before I left Can­ just like home. berra called ‘I stayed die night at Tooleybuc’, and in all honesty My main reason for wanting to get out of Canberra was that I can't write it now. ‘I stayed the night at Hay’: no, it'll never politics was corrupting inc. I was so close to it, first at Hansard, sell. Damn that Ford! then at AGPS, and apart from the public service and money, About 4 p.m. on Wednesday 7January I drove into Adelaide, politics seems the main topic of conversation in Canberra and went straight to the Afton Private Hotel on South Terrace. anyway. Sally and I were becoming quite morbid about it, I had driven 400-odd miles, and foolishly let my right arm hang allowing it, despite ourselves, to take over our feeling and out of the window most of that distance, so I was sunburnt from thinking. The sad thing is that idealism plays little part in wrist to earlobe. I wish I could report that the cheerful atmo­ politics, and even plain old common sense is a liability in the sphere and old-world comfort of the Afton soon made me diabolical machine that is politics today. You can’t trust the forget my agony; alas, the atmosphere was that of a home for politicians, because they have suppressed their idealism and wayward children, and the old-world comfort so old that only a common sense to survive in the machine. You can’t trust the Spartan would recognize it as comfort. I had a bed in my room, newspapers, because their owners want to run the machine, and and a rickety table, and a hard chair, and a small wardrobe with their employees prefer to sacrifice their feelings and principles a door that wouldn’t stay shut (I believe these are specially rather than their pay-packets. (Can you blame them? I can’t, manufactured for the poorer sort of hotels and lodging houses, because to some degree this is what I have done since I became certainly throughout Australia, possibly throughout the world, a journalist. ?\nd I understand perfectly, now, why alcoholism and are part of an evial conspiracy the nature of which even is the journalist's major occupational hazard.) Dick Geis dares not guess at). To boil my electric jug I had to pul it on a box on the chair under the light switch, where the — {Philosophical Gas 33, February 1976) only power point was. To fill the jug I had to walk down a flight of stairs, into the bathroom, and back, hoping no-one was Both John and I had had enough of living in looking, since there was probably a rule against it. There were Canberra, because we'd become too closely and rules against most things. Marc Ortlieb, brave soul, visited me in my room; ask him emotionally involved in politics, but also I wanted what it was like. When he came I had to open die door leading to live in a real city again, one with more character to the balcony, because he doesn’t smoke, and I do, and the of being old and also near the sea. I was also sick only ventilation in diat room was provided by a few slots in the of running into public servants, especially at wall, about ten feet up. parties, and all of us having very little else to talk Before I saw my room the manager rattled off the Seventeen about. So the Rigby job offered us a means of Basic Rules, took my rent-in-advancc (vide Rule 2a ii et seq.) leaving Canberra. I wrote a number of letters to and handed me a letter from Robin Johnson. I read the letter, swore all over again dial in future I would be kind and consid­ various organisations and the South Australian erate to Robin, because he is one of the most kind and consid­ public service during December and early Janu­ erate men I have ever met, and right there, in that grotty private ary. John left Canberra on 6 January, but I didn’t hotel, I felt a surge of love for him and for fandom in general leave until the last week of January. I can remem­ that I have not felt for some time. Robin, I said aloud to diose ber it all fairly clearly, because some clairvoyant dismal blank walls, is a Good Fellow! Then a vague memory of had decided that Adelaide was going to be totally a midsummer night's dream wafted into my head, and I giggled. Friar Puck! I said, tears of pain and merriment slinging my eyes. wiped out by a tidal wave on 19 January. It all I was becoming delirious, what with the sunburn, the elation of sounds ridiculous now, and although we’re not being in Adelaide, the despondency' of being in that hotel, the superstitious, we both wondered what we would joy of being a fan, and the awareness that I hadn’t had a drink do if there was a grain of truth in it. I can all day. remember Don Dunstan, then South Australian

42 Premier, reassuring everyone and in fact going to but did the same thing my father would have Glenelg Beach on the fateful day, and everyone done, and that was to take the wheel apart and breathing a sigh of relief when Adelaide survived work out logically and painstakingly what the for another day, without any tidal wave! problem was. So much for the repairer at Mount John’s mother came back to stay with me for Gambier, who obviously hadn’t found out what a couple of days before I finally packed everything the problem was. He pressed the brake drum and up in Canberra. Dylan and Donovan were sent off squirted me with water. That’s what the problem to a cattery for the last day, and Rosemarie had is, ’ he said. It had poured with rain overnight and instructions from the vet to give them a tranquil­ for some reason some water had got into the brake liser before she put them on the plane to Adelaide. drum, causing the brake to stay on. Mum and I Most of our stuff was being sent by road transport were very relieved by this stage and waved good­ interstate, but a few important items, like our bye to the old chap, insisting he take $5 for fixing wine cellar, were packed into the Renault 16. Now it, which he didn’t want to do. the only trouble with Renault 16s is that it doesn't We got into Adelaide extremely late that night, take a great deal for them to sit rather low at the with no more unforeseen problems. John had back. This is exactly what happened, and Mum sent a map of the Adelaide Hills to me, warning and I left Canberra rather anxiously and slowly. me not to make a right-hand turn into the steep I called into a service station just out of Canberra driveway at Bridgewater, as we might get killed, for some reason, and the bloke there thought that and of course I did make a right-hand turn, much we were dangerously overloaded. I was faced with to his horror. I loved the house at Bridgewater, as a dilemma — what to do with some of the cargo? it was surrounded by lots of bushland, rather like I drove to Yass railway station, the closest station Femtree Gully. We collected the cats the next day to Canberra, and decided that some of the wine from the airport, and they took several hours to and spirits were to be sent to John’s sister Ruth recover from their trip and the tranquillisers. and Barry at Heywood, a little country town in They spent the next few days exploring their new south-western Victoria. This seemed a sensible environment and loving it, although I realise now decision, as Mum and I were headed in their that it’s not a good thing to live with cats in an direction anyway. We got to Heywood late that area with lots of wildlife. Something has to suffer, night, some 400 miles, and told Ruth and Barry and it’s usually the wildlife. They were only eight­ what we had done. Barry was delighted and said een months old at that stage and veiy lively. It he would look after the boxes very carefully. I was at this stage that we started insisting they should have been suspicious then, but wasn't, sleep inside at night, partly to protect them, but and it was only on our next visit a few months also to stop them inflicting damage on other cats later that we discovered that our wine and spirits and wildlife. had been keeping him going quite nicely thank The thing that I hadn't foreseen was the effect you for the past few months! that the fire alarms would have on me. I didn’t The next day we started out for Adelaide, but think I’d been affected too much by the bushfires only got as far as the local service station and had in Hobart in 1967, but obviously I had, because I the tyres checked. Barry discovered the back had quite a fear of being caught in bushfires. driver’s side wheel was very hot to touch. We Bridgewater was an idyllic place to live except for could only suppose that the brake was staying on this. There had been some major fires in the area, for some reason, causing the back wheel to over­ and in fact in 1983, a few years later, a lot of that heat. We couldn’t discover the reason for this, and area was wiped out by bushfires. in fact thought it had been fixed and set off. We I managed to get a temporary job with the State got halfway to Mount Gambier, when I got out and Public Service almost immediately. I’d given up checked the wheel and found it to be very hot hope of a Commonwealth position, because indeed. I flagged down a passing motorist, who Fraser had frozen all public service positions in promised to contact the RAASA when he got to December. The job with the State Public Service involved shift work from 4.00 p.m. until 10.30 J Mount Gambier and get them to send a towtruck out to us, which he did. Mum and I rode in the p.m., checking old land titles against computer towtruck, while the poor Renault was towed to printouts. All of the old Torrens titles were being Mount Gambier. We spent a fair bit of the day transferred onto computer. I quite enjoyed the waiting for the car to be fixed, still hoping to make hours, as it meant I had most of the day to do it to Adelaide that night. They reassured us it had other things. I also found out that I could probably been fixed, so we took off again, this time getting get onto the day shift, which I did after I’d been as far as Penola, and discovering yet again that there for a couple of months. the wheel was still overheating. I was getting By May of that year, we discovered another rather desperate by this stage, and called in to see hazard of living in the Adelaide Hills. Often when the local RAASA fellow, who was a chap in his late we were driving home from work, or had been out sixties. He had never worked on a Renault before, somewhere and were going home later in the

43 evening, we would discover, by the time we got to Just around the comer in Henley Beach Road Eagle-on-the-Hill, about halfway up into the Hills, was an op shop run by an Anglican priest and his the whole area would be completely covered in a wife. Their church was a block or two away from very dense fog. It was dense enough only to be where we lived. Peter and his wife Barbara be­ able to see the tall lights of the car in front. Neither came good friends of ours after John ran into of us had had much experience in driving in heavy Peter in the op shop one day and got talking to fog and found that we were rather unnerved by it. him. We saw them on lots of occasions and I recall Also, running two cars was becoming too expen­ Peter quite happily playing poker with John’s sive and we knew we would have to sell the Falcon mother on one of her visits. I found out in later 500, which John had bought just before leaving years that Peter and David Farrer, my priest at Canberra. Christ Church for many years, but now at St We thought the best thing would be to look for Peter’s, Eastern Hill, had gone through theologi­ a house close to the city and go from one extreme cal college together in Adelaide. This didn’t sur­ to the other. I’m not quite sure how we came to prise me, as they had rather similar ideas about be looking at a house in Mile End, literally a mile tilings. west of the city centre. I think we were working towards that area, after we’d looked at a house in 30 December 1976 . . . One night a few weeks ago we let Dylan Thebarton, the next suburb, and decided that we watch an elderly television program called Dnktari. You’ve prob­ ably seen it. This particular episode concerned a man-eating couldn’t live with very bright colours in every leopard called The Phantom. It was OK. The man-eating room. Most of the houses in Hughes Street, Mile leopard didn’t actually kill anyone during the program, but it End, were lovely old bluestone, very solid and cool was OK. About an hour after it ended, Dylan leapt from the during summer. The house we moved into had sideboard onto iny lap, more or less. The thing was that, sitting three bedrooms, a dining room, a loungeroom and sort of sideways, as I was, with my naked legs clad in nothing a kitchen. It had veiy high ceilings, and as we but their native skin and hair (it’s the heat you understand), I discovered later, rising damp in one of the rooms. didn’t have much lap to speak of, and Dylan skidded down my left leg, leaving claw marks most of the way. This was a little The blocks were a decent size and there was a very painful, yes, but I managed to hobble to the typewriter next day large almond tree in the back garden. I can re­ (thank you for asking). A few nights later Dylan attacked Sally's member climbing up the almond tree at some legs, from a similar position. It may be entirely coincidence, I stage during 1977, to pick almonds with Vonda know, but lately I’ve been keeping a wary eye on that black cat, McIntyre. Dylan and Donovan adjusted veiy because I'm almost convinced he thinks he's a man-eating quickly and discovered the joys of living in the leopard. Ifyou think I’m exaggerating, ask anyone who has met him. He’s an odd cat. If he were human. I’m sure he’d be inner city, as did 1.1 walked around the comer to organizing a World SF Convention. He’s mad enough for Henley Beach Road and got a bus to work in anything. Grenfell Street, all of five minutes, so I should The psychology of cats, as Marc Ortlicb will tell you (along really have walked, but I was not health conscious with any other self-respecting cat-lover in our midst — and who in those days and was several stone lighter. can be truly human who has never been a cat-lover?), is, to say At that stage I was working for the licensing the least, of some passing interest. If you haven’t had children, area of Consumer Affairs, a very enjoyable job. We you could almost say they’re like children. Take Donovan, for example. He’s the ginger one, yes. Now Donovan is very differ­ saw a lot of Gary Mason, who I think also worked ent from Dylan. Dylan pretends to be affectionate, and he for Consumer Affairs in those days. John went pretends to be a killer. Fair enough: he’s both, up to a point. freelance with Rigby in July 1976. Our time in But Donovan doesn’t pretend. Donovan is the one who hates Adelaide was a veiy pleasant one. We had excel­ visitors. He hides. This is because of his early upbringing, before lent neighbours on both sides, but on one side in we met him. He just hates people. Before we met him, someone particular, where there were three elderly sisters. had cut his whiskers — a terrible thing to do to a cat — and this The youngest, Flo, was 78. She looked after her meant that he was scared of people generally, and that he had no sense of balance. He kept on falling off things. But we two older sisters, one of whom was deaf and the noticed fairly early that Donovan was the one that went racing other blind. She became absolutely devoted to up trees after birds twice his size, and caught them. These days, Dylan and Donovan, would do anything for them of course, he’s twice the size of the Canberra currawong, and and called them her ‘boys'. When she did her we don’t get birds like that at Mile End, but he’s still a killer. shopping at the local comer shop she would Donovan is the one that goes after anything that moves here, always buy a packet of crisps for the cats, who not Dylan. And he's affectionate. If you can manage to tickle Donovan, he’ll fall off whatever he was on, in sheer ecstasy. I loved them in those days. I discovered fairly early wouldn’t like to admit that Dylan is entirely Sally’s cat, but if he in their lives that any sort of crisp, Twisties or is, then Donovan is mine. whatever, they would expect to be shared with them. Donovan was even known to help himself — (Philosophical Gas 36, December 1976) to an open packet.

— Sally Yeoland, 1993-94, and John Bangsund, 1973-76

44 I ’ TERRY FROST at CONSTANTINOPLE, Melbourne, Easter 1994 FOUR DAYS IN ANOTHER CON

(Reprinted from The Great Animal Soup of Time.) The party's over, the analyses have begun — started perhaps by Nick Statho- poulos's heartfelt and uncomfortably honest award acceptance speech at Constantinople (Easter 1994) in which he vivisected that smug beast we all know as the Ditmar-As-Popularity-Award. William Gibson has returned to a strange and alien place called the world of entertainment, the other attendees have suffered the annual post-con diaspora and I have finally achieved the nirvana of eight hours' sleep in a row. Looking back. Constantinople doesn’t seem quite real. People I thought didn't particularly like me acted in a benign and compassionate way, others acted in a manner confusing and pointless, several benighted souls expressed envy in my direction. It was — and there is no other way to say this — byzantine. The whole magilia was a space-time node of weirdness, ego-threatening plot twists, acts of awesome kindness, abruptly experienced wonder and reality shifts worthy of a Phil Dick novel. It brought out the best in some of us and for others it did the favour of pointing out the fact that they've been frigging around childishly with their skills, talents, time and insights far too long. Ditmars It's no secret that I was the punter’s favourite to win the Best Fan Writer Award. If the TAB had permitted, some people would’ve laid money on me in an odds-on Trifecta with Nick Stathopoulos and Leanne Frahm. (Personally, I would've backed me for the win with an insurance bet on Bruce Gillespie, who was something like a 5-to-l second favourite at the time.) k/lA/iUfi, MA." On Awards Night, rather than hanging around in the heady, stud-starred world of lit fandom. Michelle SAvrqfMVT Hallett and I had dinner with a bunch of media fen and a young BBS sysop with attitude at the Nyonya. The sysop opined that Gibson was a phoney because he knew diddly about computers and wrote Neuro- mancer on a typewriter. That was cool because fifteen years ago I used to say dumb, defensive, ego-driven things like that. I argued that Gibson was a synthesist who Bamixed together pop culture, a cutting-edge sense of techno­ logical entropy and a beatnik ear for the euphony of the language into prose that somehow managed to cut through everyone’s bullshit filter and mesmerise the reader. (I wasn't really that eloquent, but the gist is true to the conversa­ tion.) It was during dinner that abdominal muscles directly south of my sternum began vibrating to a rapidly staccato beat and I found myself breathing off the top of my lungs. To combat this. I took deep shuddering breaths now and then and expelled them explosively to clear the miasma from my alveoli. The only time I had ever felt anything similar was at Syncon 83 when I rolled up at the con after living for six months in Dubbo NSW, went bugfuck-manic for four

45 days to escape the grim knowledge that when the gavel banged at the closing ceremony I’d have to go back to a reality where I was both broke and homeless. Strangely enough. I was nominated for two awards that year. too. Life sometimes dimly echoes itself — or maybe our perceptions Just link random events in that way to help us understand them. 1 took a seat at the award ceremony somewhere up near the back because that way people would applaud longer as I made my way to the podium. (It's an old Oscars trick that never fails. Tommy Lee Jones did it this time.) Michelle Hallett sat on my left. Leanne Frahm on my right and John Foyster behind me with Yvonne Rousseau. Julian Warner and Lucy Sussex. The lights dropped and without an overture Ian Gunn gave out a bunch of self-referential joke award teaspoons before the real stuff happened. Maybe V nerves made me impatient of the same kind of facile NewWave Fan Boy belly laughs we've been getting since the eighties. Ian should get serious and and I • simply Do the Next Thing. Maybe the spoons should have been given out after hL' the real awards, as happened with the Gold Plated Caterpillars in a bygone age. I never expected to get an ASFMA fan writer award, but injustice and inanity abound in awards, which is why I mocked the media equivalent of the Ditmars in my Thyme column. Awards are. in theory at least, a way of saying thanks and of encouraging excellence — so I reckoned that it should go to someone who (a) wanted it and (b) it would encourage to excellence. That’s the name of the game. For me to win one would have been embarrassing and just wrong. Came the Real Ditmars. By this time I had burned enough nervous energy to put me at the top of an emotioned parabola. (Pic­ ture a Pegasus booster launching an American spy-sat.) I was in free fall and lost track of my feelings. It felt like shock and fear, but no real I know that cream floats, but loathing. I whispered one-liners to Leanne and Michelle so does polystyrene.” sotto voce to somehow jump-start myself emotion­ ally. It didn't work. I was hyper-aware of my sur­ roundings but empty inside. Nick Stathopoulos 4 won the Most Liked Pro Artist (sic) and gave his difficult but honest speech on how biased, ma­ nipulate, parochial and plain dumb the Ditmars have become. (Nick, thanks for your honesty and courage. Telling the truth to a crowd can get you into immense amounts of shit but you sleep better when you do. I'm ashamed to say that I'm part of that problem — I voted for you.) Leanne won the award for Best Short Fiction and turned into a gibbering, blubbering, gasping and incredibly lovable heap. That helped thaw my emotions and 1 was proud to be sitting next to her. Fan Writer. Marc Ortlieb, who was MCing, announced that Irwin Hirsh had voted for me because he wanted his Most Unsuccessful Ditmar Nominee crown back. (Irwin had told me this — several times — and I wished him luck in his efforts.) Michelle and Leanne clutched my upper arms and held me for one of two reasons: either to give me a physical manifestation of their moral support or to stop me from throttling Bruce if he won.

Two heartbeats before they announced the winner. I had a sudden knowledge that Bruce was going to get it. I was pretty spacey by this time and I felt like I could feel the time-lines calving and the alternative universe where I won went spinning off into a place that only Stephen Hawking could imagine or quantify.

Inevitably. Bruce’s name was uttered and something clapped me on the shoulder. It was John Foyster’s hand as he screamed ’Champion!’ in my ear. Regardless of his intentions. I wanted to find out what he’d had for dinner the hard way. It was a sudden, second-long fury and Michelle, who'd been recently pumping iron, restrained me until it passed. After that I decided that I’d have a little dignity for the rest of the evening and eviscerating BNFs was for lesser creatures than I.

Bruce stepped up with visible reluctance and told everyone that he’d voted for me. His kindness floored me. People like Bruce and Leanne who have a seemingly innate sense of honour leave me pole-axed with admiration. Any sense of morality I have I acquired as an adult. To have it integral to one’s

46 nature qualifies as a paranormal ability, on par with telepathy or having an eidetic memory or winning every time you play poker machines. Marc asked the nominees to go up to collect their plaques and I did. somewhat surprised that my body was functioning enough to let me walk. My brain had $ me convinced I was invalid. Halfway to the stage Jan MacNally appeared at my side and took my hand. (She too was nominated.) That was another act of unexpected kindness that stunned me. We walked up there together and received the plaques. Michelle and Leanne decided that we all needed a drink. In my experience, female intuition is particularly acute when it comes to the aptness of alcohol % consumption. They have an instinctive knowledge about medicinal ethanol. But I decided that I’d congratulate both Bruce and George Turner (who did a t’riffle George Bums turn when receiving the Best Long Fiction for The Destiny Makers). I also wanted to tell Nick that I believed he did the right thing in his speech. Before and after this spasm of handshaking and back-patting. I was hugged and kissed by ten or so attractive women, all of whom knew I responded well to that kind of stimulus, shook hands with male friends and hugged a few of them. too. Finally, after a length of time I couldn't really measure I collared ' ■ 1 Leanne and Michelle and said. 'Fuck this, let's get a drink.’ Leanne had been upstairs phoning her husband Kerry and both of them were crying about her win. thousands of kays apart. We went downstairs to the bar. saw a panorama of the kind of unlikely characters who frequent such 1’5 places at 1 1 p.m. on a Sunday night and decided to commandeer a nest of couches in the lobby. Somewhere I had acquired a cyalume stick from Apollo Zammit. It glowed a kind of cherenkov radiation blue, so I took a slug of my & gin & t and dropped the cylinder of chemical light into the drink. It reminded me of nights in the Manhattan nightclub in Canberra with Kate Burgess just after I left Karen. I'd dress in black, order a gin and tonic and sit under one of the UV lights so that the quinine in the tonic water would fluoresce a ghostly pl blue. But the icy gin suppressed the chemistry of the lightstick and it dimmed. Songs began to run through my head. Isabella Rossellini singing ‘Blue Velvet' very badly. Sondheim's 'I'm Still Here’. I told Leanne and Michelle and Lucy Zinkiewicz. who had Joined us. that I was suddenly living in the movies. Puckish deities were channel-switching my life during the commercial breaks. $ From an Oscar ceremony on some Hollywood drama. I had zip-panned to a Bl hotel lobby scene. This whimsy fitted with my food like the dovetails in Japanese joinery. There's 11 a point in Tiuo Weeks in Another Town where the Kirk Douglas character has all his fears and nightmares come to life. He falls off the wagon, the friend 1 who's giving him a second chance at a career has been poisoned against him m by a scheming wife, he does the right thing by the Italian starlet he’s attracted to and lets her go. his own nymphomaniacal ex-wife (played by Cyd Charisse) tries to seduce him with the sure knowledge that it'll drive him to suicide this time. None of that was happening to me. but the emotional context was scarily S’ similar. 3 From that moment on at the con I was living inside movies. With every mood shift or unexpected happening the Halliwell data base behind my brow would chug and tell me what film I was in. Call it a temporarily altered state of consciousness brought on by tension, fatigue toxins, disappointment and dieting if you like, but I went with the flow, and it's a harmless fancy that helped me function for the rest of the con. As we sat there and the second drink kicked in. I looked around the lobby THEORY DUMBER ORE Oft WHY COftHRDTIDOPlE and thought Wild Palms. James Belushi. Robert Loggiea, Angie Dick­ » WRf WRY WEIRD. • inson and Nick Mancuso in the world’s first cyberpunk miniseries. .The convention was a near total reality breakdown. If J The hotel reminded me of the LA reality is a consensual hallucination then the physical hotel where Bill Gibson did his cameo appearance in Wild Palms. All proximity of so many fans existing on so little sleep £. right! I grokked that for awhile and had changed the nature of what we see and seem in a > shared the insight with my compan­ ions. None of them had seen WP, of radical manner. • course, but they were kind. We shot »»»»»•»•»»»»»»»•>»»»»»»»»»

47 the breeze and I began to formulate my master plan for improving the Ditmars. upping the Intelligent Interest Quotient of con panels, restructuring the mindset of media fandom and working out ways of explaining to Dr Who fans how lame that series really was. We chatted about people and places and changes in both. I explained that this convention was different for me. Somehow I was a role model for younger and greener fans. I had even (shock! horror! merde!) become something of a fannish celebrity. Clive James or someone like him once said that celebrity is when more people know you than you know. That's exactly what happened. I signed photographs, had paparazzi flashing at me unexpectedly (and not just the usual Richard Hryckiewicz sequence of click! flash! grin!) and somehow ended up talking about the con and Australian sf in general on ‘Einstein Au Go Go' on 3RRR community radio. My interview went to air immediately after William Gibson and a dapper old guy called Robert Jewell who used to operate a Dalek for the BBC. Jenny Ackroyd heard it on her car radio and somehow managed not to prang. She said that it sounded good, and hubris enables me to believe that. Through all this I was walking on unfamiliar ground. I know what happens to celebrities. They get really bad inflammation of the ego and demand that their bald spots be rotoscoped out of every frame of the movie. But I wasn't at that stage yet. It was more the ivhat the fuck is happening here?' stage, which leads to something that felt very like low-level panic, which by the time of the awards had manifested as a full-blown anxiety crisis and reality rearrangement. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, shit or spontaneously combust. Never before in my life had I experienced anywhere near this level of peer approval, and the paradigm shift was tearing me up. The notes on my Amstrad Notepad say This is like riding a boogie board into a black hole'. I also found a note on the Amstrad from Michelle and Leanne, who said encouraging things that are now lost because the fuckin' machine dumped its memory a little while after I read it. (I've since acquired an additional memory card for the machine, which means that it won't be able to capriciously erase my hard-typed work or beautiful compliments from friends.) Waitret, Please Waitret

Was it Sunday or Monday lunch time that Bruce, Elaine. Phil and 1 ate lunch > THEORY nUHBER TWO at the Sun Po? Doesn't matter. As Captain Cloud said in Get Crazy: Time's a £ trip, man.' on WHY The scene is this: a hole-in-the-wall Chinese chop shop in Russell Street. Napalm ducks in the window, one of these really big Chinese Calendars on the ‘ conrrnrHinopiE wrj walls, formica tables for around 20 patrons, and a slight scent of joss-sticks WRY WEIRD. i coming from the back room. Melbourne's full of such places. You can’t throw a one-liner near Little Bourke Street without someone in one of these places laughing at it. William Gibson's Guest of s Honour speech. There was g We saunter into the Sun Po and I think to myself. Oh, yeah, there’s Kinky Friedman. No big shock, no surprise. It fits with the flow of events that weekend. i something about the lean, £ For half the con I’ve been telling people that my two current role models are black garbed, question-mark Kramer from Seinfeld and Kinky Friedman, songwriter, singer, crime novelist * shaped cyberculture icon­ and former leader of the Texas Jewboys. The guy who wrote ‘Asshole from El god with a William S. Paso’, They Ain’t Makin' Jews Like Jesus Any More’ and 'Get The Biscuits from I the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed’. The only man in the world with £ Burroughs drawl painting s brontosaurus-foreskin cowboy boots. word-images of life in show £ So we stroll past the moustached guy with the smashed budgie on the side of s bix and the magic of making £ his stetson and sit down. I don’t know if Bruce knows that the Kinkster’s there, jj movies in Toronto that jj but I'm not going to be so uncool as to drool, go wow! or even talk loudly enough £ broke down the Mega-Meme £ to let Bruce and Elaine know that I’m totally blown away by sitting a metre £ of Reality, making its cell- * away from one of my great idols of the moment. I try to figure out if there's a membrane permeable to < bookshop that has the Kinky Friedman Omnibus near by. decide there isn't, and take that disappointment philosophically. ‘v other, smaller memes. It took £ a while for the reality to I order a seafood combination soup (which was good) and halfway through I lunch. Elaine says quietly, 'Is that Kinky Friedman?' Bruce stays cooler than i change, hence the fact that 2 I did and tells her it is. Soon after (but not before Elaine broke the code of I £ the true weirdness kicked in * silence) the Kinkster leaves. Phil smiles and nods a lot, grokking the vibes in | on Sunday afternoon. £ a bright-eyed Phil kinda way. I decide that the whole Constantinople thing is I i a strange and wondrous computer game scenario that someone's running on

48 inc and the Sun Po instantly becomes an important Melbourne landmark for me. Rather like the uppermost level of the fire stairs at the Victoria Hotel where I once schutupped someone comely after slipping out of the Friday night cocktail party at a convention. J — Terry Frost, May 1994 71 Is-j IIIHii r TERRY FROST at l| THYLACON, 1 : fl I Hobart, 10-12 June 1995 W W! FOUR DAYS IM THE LAMD iS 1/ OF THE ANTHROPOPHAGI 1 ! VyI ft El (From Miniezine Flashback. No. 3. September 1995.) In olden days when it was still considered politically correct to bugger cabin boys 1 on long sea cruises, Tasmania was thought to be the home of headless anthropo­ k phagi. In other words, cannibals with mouths in their stomachs. 1 didn’t happen to f ■ • vSr-'J sec any of them while I was in Van Diemen’s Land, more s the pity. I was also on the lookout for that other renowned attribute of Apple Islanders: serious long-term inbreeding. With the exception of a singularly gene-kinked stall-holder at Salamanca Vi Market, everyone I saw in Tasmania looked like they came from a diverse gene pool JgJ — even when they didn’t act like it. There were cannibals in Tasmania, however. Escaped convicts trying in vain to find Wji t civilisation down there had the disturbing habit of turning each other into Lean Cuisine when possums became scarce or elusive. Happily, the food situation there has been improved. I was supposed to take notes on the trip to Thylacon. It was my first visit to Tasmania I' and I fully intended to document the experience with a clarity that won’t otherwise be seen until Virtual Reality really gets its shit together. I took along my faithful Boswell, the little AmsLrad Notepad computer. I even wrote a page of people­ feM I observation notes on it at Tullamarine Airport before leaving. But I think I saw the Notepad twice in Tasmania, once while hunting for Panadols one morning and the second time while packing books into the backpack. I was having too good a time to take notes. As a result of this, the con report is going T'K to be a tad post-modernist, in that it's made up of vague memories and snippets (or If — as Kate Langbroek and Fiona Scott-Norman say on 3RRR’s 'F&K Show’ — schnippets). ft; A'A-' 1IF’ My OoM® Mihe Om Cary Lenehan, one of the co-chairs of the convention, has a ‘No Republic’ sticker on □feVsB ■ ' A tV ■ - ■! ffl his car. and he warned us ‘mainlanders’ not to mention the ‘R word’ in Hobart. This kind of censorship could not go unchallenged, so by wryly crossing monarchism with Tasmania’s anti-gay legislation, I cornered him by the registration desk and declaimed with puckish sincerity. ’Listen, Lenehan. Tasmania can't have it both lrI ways. You’re either for Queens or against them.’ He had the grace to smile reluctantly but was miffed when I showed him a local r Wl HO newspaper headline the next day that read Tasmania to Lead the Way on the i K Republic'. This banner put a lot of locals into paroxysms of anguish. It’s hard to find h an inhabited place that's geographically further away from England than Tasmania, i11

49 nor one spiritually closer to some long-lost tum-of-the-century dream of a green and pleasant land. Stan and the Hadley’s Hotel Bar Kim Stanley ’Stan’ Robinson was among the most approachable, cool and intelligent Guests of Honour we’ve had here. His presence highlighted the dif­ ference between the lit-fan and media-fan approach to GsoH. He was more like a guy who writes than a celebrity. He and most of the rest of the con spent comfortable blocks of time sitting in the bar shooting the breeze about all manner of things. 1 got into a good conversation on movies with him (the five-minute terraformation of Mars in Total Recall amused us both) and we were there at one or two a.m. when small hordes of drunken Apple Islers tapped on the bar windows from outside and gestured incomprehensibly at us. Nick Stathopou- los walked up to the window and pretended to unzip his fly and flash his Kennett at them. There are times when, living in Melbourne, I miss that kind of Sydneyside sophistication. Treating windows like the bars of a zoo is a weird Taswegian phenomenon, but not as weird as the couple who at three that morning did the dirty boogie on the church steps across the street for the delectation of late-night con-goers. It ain’t the coolest behaviour known, but I have a sly admiration for their sans souci attitude to organised religion. Hobart—the town Salamanca Markets have got to be the best al fresco street-level capitalist phenomenon in Australia. Six hundred metres long with two aisles for most of the way and hundreds of refreshingly varied stalls selling records, edible fruit, leather, clothing, rubber stamps, fresh produce, hot doughnuts, fridge magnets, jewellery, software, ice cream, vegetarian pies, candles, yak socks, bookshelves, honey, lucky dips (don't tiy it — I did and got an old Ninja Turtle toy) and a million other things. We covered the waterfront — Constitution Dock, where the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race ends every year. Now I've seen both ends of it. The floating fish and chip shops, pale yellow starfish that are like an underwater rabbit plague in the area, old decrepit sailing ships and ramshackle lobster boats piled high with wicker pots. The SouthHead, an old Sydney-to-Manly ferry, sits there like a manifestation of a childhood memory. It looked just as large and exciting as it had when I rode it across the Sydney Heads in a rough sea thirty years ago. It’s nice to know that it’s still around. Too many significant artefacts of our childhoods vanish from reality. I like Hobart. I’m not sure I could live there. They have only four tv stations, though Galaxy Cable is about to throw up a transmission tower on Mount Wellington any day now. the parochialism would make my brain itch after a while, and the cold weather would eventually become too depressing. The Award They changed the Ditmar Awards ceremony on me a lot. At first I thought the banquets and awards were on Saturday night, then found out they were on Sunday. The awards were going to be after the meal, then at the last minute they decided to have them first. Before it all. I felt numb but not as numb as last year. Phil Wlodarczyk and Frances Papworth looked after me as we sat at the back of the audience. This positioning was a none-too-subtle ploy to maximise the duration of applause if I happened to win. It worked admirably. Wynne Whiteford got the Chandler Award, which was great. He’s been writing since an age when HiUer was Time's Man of the Year and he’s still doing it. He’s been at a typewriter for most of the twentieth century, and yet on Monday night he spent the evening hunting the elusive fish-and-chip shop with a rowdy bunch of merry drunks many decades younger than himself. And he was one of us. Alan Stewart got the Best Fanzine award for Thyme, then the Best Fan Writer nominations were announced. Phil and Frances supplied moral support on either

50 side of me. I sat there trying to scry the immediate future — to suss the way that the winds of probability were blowing. Came up with zip. unlike last year when I sensed Bruce's success a moment before the name was spoken. Then the amplified voice of Grant Stone mentioned my name and I felt a tumour in my psyche dissolve in an instant. A long-clenched muscle complex somewhere in my gizzards relaxed. Amazingly. I could still walk, and did so up to the stage where Grant gave me the Lewis-Morley-designed art deco award on a base of Tasmanian blackwood. I used my one prepared line on the audience. Tm glad I got this before all my hair has turned grey, all my teeth have fallen out and before I need to shop for a penile implant', and it went over well. I thanked supportive friends including, without getting either metaphysical or maudlin, Roger Weddall, and then got the fuck outta Dodge. One humour-challenged wit suggested that I should still go for the penile implant and I bravely avoided scrutinising his hairline and suggesting a different kind of prosthetic procedure. Such was my bonhomie. I didn't really feel relieved or exuberant. I felt a wide, all-encompassing rightness. By never telling people to vote for me, by using the award nominations as a talisman with which I worked to improve what I was doing. I felt that I'd put a little credibility back in the Ditmars after they'd been so sorely used in the 1980s. I felt a part of the history of Australian fandom, and belonging to it comforted me greatly. The photo opportunity was an ordeal for some reason. I think I smiled for the cameras and camcorder. Mostly I felt a strange, not-at-all-unpleasant stunned sensation. We proceeded to the banquet hall and got stuck into the seafood chowder, the venison, cold cuts and other exotic victuals of surpassing quality. Apres grub, when the Fan Fund Auctioning started, I slipped out to call Susan. She congratulated me and sounded immensely pleased to be over the post-Ditmar Award bouts of depression I'd suffered ever since she'd known me. Florence Nightingale she ain't. Then I called Leanne Frahm. She head the STD beeps on the phone and shrieked Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!' Sorry Leanne.' said I. 'You didn't win the Best Short Fiction. Greg Egan did.' 'Bugger that,' La Frahm retorted. Did you get one?' 'Well, yeah,' I admitted, then held the phone away from my ear as a telephonic shriek of delight beamed from the deep north to the dark south of the continent. We chatted until my pocket change ran out and I got back to the banquet as they finished selling stuff to the captive audience. People have been extremely cool and kind about the win. Much as they've been knocked by some, the Ditmars are a great encouragement to us all. They aren't an end in themselves but they're more like that first cup of coffee in the morning that sharpens the perceptions, squirts a dose of optimism into the veins and. if only for a moment, makes us feel that anything's possible. After the Awards, someone asked me if this meant that I was going to give up writing fanzines now that I’d eaten the carrot from the stick. 1 gave him my best Errol-Flynn-playing-Robin-Hood mocking laugh and said no. Unlike professional pugilists who throw in the towel at the top. I'm going to keep going. I'm passionate about writing, even though I've only ever made $37.50 out of it (plus $1NZ) and if I don't let my fingers dance creatively over a keyboard at regular intervals or so I get morose, moody and cranky. Yep, words are the monkeys on my back but hey, how many addictions do you know that can get you awards? One of my other fond and mellow memories of the convention was lounging around the large, comfortable hotel room one afternoon with Frances, vegging out and watching, of all things, Endless Summer II on the in-house video. There was something extremely zen and meditative about watching guys slide down the glassy jade slopes of Indonesian water, beach-bash with Nat Young in Queensland and skim the fast, bright surfaces of coral reefs in Fiji. Pure magic, it re-energised us for the rest of the convention. Taswegian plug I encourage all of you to get to a Tasmanian convention even if you have to start dog-paddling now. Hobart's as photogenic a town as we have in this brown, unpleasant land. The croissants are cheap and crusty there and you can even get a decent cup of coffee if you take reasonable precautions. There's a new crop of Tasmanian fans who want, need and deserve our encouragement, so build a few bridges. None of us have anything to lose by this. — Terry Frost, September 1995

51

5 FEATURE LETTERS TWO GREAT FALLS

The falling

GERALD MURNANE postponing a decision. The crowdedness of our small 2 Falcon Street house was becoming unbearable, not to mention the Macleod strain of finding dirty dishes on the sink at all hours and Victoria 3085 the feeling that we were being used up. I say this without meaning to speak against my twin sons. However, a time I broke my leg on 14 October 1994. Many rumours have comes when the parents of any animal turn away from it. I used to watch with interest many a mother cat circulated among my students about my accident. Barry boxing its half-grown kitten over the ears when it was Oakley’s piece in The Australian Magazine was not accu­ time for the young one to stop trying to suckle and to rate. Add to that the general ignorance among the populace as to the time needed to recover from my sort get out and catch its own mice. Catherine and I were tired of subsidising our sons and shopping for their food of accident, and you have a situation that cries out to be etc. etc. Well, the boys left in October 1994 — on the set aright. 11th, to be precise. They went to a rented house in Before last October, I had never been a patient in a Clifton Hill where they remain, happy and well satisfied hospital. The only surgery I had ever undergone was my circumcision as a baby (unless I was born without a and wondering why they didn’t leave home sooner. foreskin) and two small operations for the removal of Catherine and I were in a mood to celebrate. Here were these two empty rooms given back to us after we had cysts from my scalp in 1955 and 1990. Neither of these lived likejapanese for so long, with our belongings piled required a stay in hospital. Before last October, I could up in cupboards . . . say that I had never broken or dislocated any bone in I couldn’t wait to take over one of the rooms and to mybody. Asoflast October,! had more than ten months move things into both. But I had to wait for a few days, of accumulated sick leave, so seldom had I been ill. so busy was I at work. The first time that I had for my When I left the Education Department in 1973, I had takeover was Friday evening, the 14th of October. Ah, likewise a huge amount of unused sick leave. So, I was fateful evening! someone who needed to be reminded that he was not made of imperishable stuff; who needed to be brought I opened a six-pack of Coopers Sparkling Ale and got to work. I moved filing cabinets and their contents. I low — literally as well as figuratively. carried boxes of books and filing cabinets and their Catherine insists that my accident was the result of contents. I carried boxes of books and papers. I was my working too hard. She is partly right. I had worked unstoppable, it seemed. z\t about eleven-thirty, I was without a break for nearly a year on the night of my fall. standing on a chair and pushing a row of books along a I had worked by day and by night all through the shelf near the ceiling of what had been for so long my previous summer, with only a few hours off for Xmas son Martin’s room and out of bounds to me but was now and New Year, doing the dreadful task of the Selection my new playground. Some of the books began to fall. Officer for my course at Deakin by day and trying to Instinctively, I reached out to save the fuckers. finish the book Emerald Blueby night and at weekends. I do not know how I fell. I recall lying on the floor In October, I had just come through the hardest part of and knowing, as one knows things in dreams, that some­ my year as a teacher of fiction writing — sitting over my thing was wrong with me. I recall hearing the last of a students’ assignments for thirty hours a week as well as stubby of beer pouring onto the carpet from the ironing taking sixteen hours of classes each week and doing my board near by. As I had fallen, I must have clipped the share of the never-ending administration at Toorak — corner of the ironing board and caused the stubby to but I hadn’t unwound. I know now that I was over­ fall onto its side and to pour out its contents. I recall wound. reaching up and standing upright the now empty But that was only one contributing cause. The big stubby. I recall lying where I lay for a minute or two, event of our year in 1994, if I hadn’t broken my leg, knowing, as I just said, that this had been no ordinary' would have been the twins’ leaving home for good. All fall. I recall using the chair to drag myself to my foot. I year, they had been looking at houses to buy or rent but wrote foot because I had not as yet put any weight on my

52 left leg which, so I divined, was not quite right. at by the Orthopaedic Registrar. I was admitted, for the I recall standing up with my hands on the chair and first time in my life, to a hospital. putting weight on my left leg. I recall — and I’ll never forget — my left leg buckling under me as though the Here follow the chief events of the next few months. bone from the knee to the ankle was a strap of licorice. On Tuesday 18 October, I was operated on. I was cut I recall — let’s be frank — hopping out to the toilet with open in two places. My left leg, as you might expect, was the chair as a walking-frame and emptying my bowels slashed open, and my right hip was exposed. Bone was from fear of what I done to myself. I recall hopping up scraped from my hip and used to replace the top comer to Catherine’s and my bedroom and waking her up to of my left tibia, which I had neatly removed from its tell her that I had injured my leg. I do not recall any rightful position when I fell from the chair in the room pain. God is merciful. Injuries such as mine seem to be that was formerly Martin’s. The grafted bone was held painless. You can say I was in shock, if you like. in place by a screw, whose threaded part went into the I can’t tell you all the details, or this letter would be surviving part of my upper tibia. A metal plate was ten pages long. Catherine phoned the Austin Hospital. placed vertically against the upper part of my tibia, and The woman who answered the phone said (surprise! the screw just mentioned went through the upper part surprise!) that (he casualty ward was very busy that night of the plate. Three other screws went through the lower but that I had better come along and have my leg looked part of the plate. At the time, I had no idea of the at. In the meanwhile, the woman said, we could do worse position or the purpose of all these screws and thing- than call an ambulance. Ambulance drivers, so the ummies, but I have studied my X-rays on many occasions woman said, were very good at estimating the severity of since, and I now know exactly what was done to me. injuries. An ambulance driver could tell whether or not On Friday 21 October, when I should have been I had broken my leg. preparing to go home, I was discovered to have a clot in I lay on the bed and pressed ice packs against my leg, my fucked leg. I was then put onto a course of anti­ which was swelling as if there was no tomorrow. (There coagulant medicine which I am still on. wasn’t!) After a while two friendly ambulance men came On Sunday 30 October, I was discharged from hos­ in and asked me to try to wriggle the toes of my fucked pital with my leg in a plaster from thigh to ankle. I was leg. I wriggled the little fellers OK, whereupon the under strict instructions not to jolt the leg and not, for ambulance men told me that I could not have broken Christ’s sake, to put any weight on it by pressing the foot my leg. I must have damaged my ligaments in some way. to the floor. I had a pair of crutches for hopping around (Thanks, fellers!) But the men were considerate enough the house but I spent most of the next month lying in to tell us that if we weren't members of the Ambulance bed and watching the wattle-birds in the front garden. Scheme (and we weren’t), a trip to the Austin Hospital Well-meaning but ignorant persons had by now begun (about three miles) would cost us more than $400. So sending me cards. They were as ignorant about broken the men went away and my son Giles drive me in my car limbs as I had been before my fall. One of them urged to the Austin. (Giles still lives with us. It was just as well me to write, write, write, while I was laid up. I couldn’t that he didn’t move out when the twins moved.) even bring myself to read, read, read. I felt as though I 1 When Giles and I arrived at the Austin, he had to was a different person. I felt as though I had to go far, park forty yards from the door of Casualty. I tried to hop far back to some earlier point in my life and start all over from the car to the ward but soon tired myself. I sent again. Oh, how strange and helpless and useless I felt! I him inside to ask for a wheelchair. He then wheeled me even had a special chair for sitting in when I sat on the in to the front desk of Casualty where, in response to toilet. (In the hospital, in my worst days, the nurses had the perfunctory question from the woman at the desk, to lift me on and off the toilet seatl) I uttered one of my best-over lines. ‘I’ve done a bit of On 1 December, my plaster was removed and my leg damage to the ligaments of my left knee,’ I said. (Thanks was X-rayed. My surgeon said he was delighted with the again, fellers!) X-ray but that I was to go home and not even touch my There were about half a dozen persons in the Casu­ left foot to the ground until further notice. alty waiting room, and none of us was attended to until My surgeon next saw me on 22 December. By then, about four in the morning. (I had arrived soon after I had begun physiotherapy. I should have mentioned midnight.) Until I sent Giles home, he and I sat and just above that I had been expecting to be allowed to watched a film called, I think, The Creature from 50,000 start walking as soon as my plaster had been removed Fathoms. Two doctors were in attendance that night, but on 1 December. Well, when they took the paster off, I they were fully occupied with the people who kept couldn’t even bend my knee. When Giles drove me arriving by ambulance. We in the waiting room, with our home that day, I couldn’t even get my leg into the front damaged ligaments and whatever, were left to watch old seat of the car — I had to sit across the back seat as I had black-and-white movies. while my plaster was on. That’s where the physio­ I was sent for an X-ray at exactly six on the Saturday therapist comes into the story. I began to see her as from morning. This account of my troubles is not meant to when my plaster came off, and her exercises helped me suggest that the Austin Hospital is in anyway remiss. As to get the leg working again. Nobody knows what hap­ soon as the young doctor in Casually saw the film of my pens to a limb that has been out of use for two months X-ray, I was treated differently. No more Creature from unless it happens to them. Please God, forgive me for 50,000Fathoms for mel I had a cast put on my leg, which my careless disregard of my son Giles’s troubles when by then was about three times its normal size and gen­ he broke his arm in 1983. Now I know why he couldn’t erally blue-green in colour. I signed forms. I was looked bend the bastard normally for weeks after he had his

53 plaster taken off — and I thought he was being a sook! Next week also, I have an X-ray and visit my surgeon. My surgeon, as I say, saw me on 22 December. Again, He will cither say he doesn’t want to sec me for months I was expecting him to allow me to resume a normal life, to come or tell me that I have to go back to hospital. I but all he did was to warn me and the physio that I was think the odds arc much in favour of the former. The not to put any weight on the leg until midJanuary’. He physio believes I’ll be leading my old life in a few believes that my sort of injury must be given three months. It seems too good to be true. months and no less to heal. At the time, I was impatient I'm due back at work in the first week of February, with him, but now I bless him. but I’ve still got five or six months of sick leave unused, On Thursday 12 January, almost three calendar and I feel as though I deserve a holiday after all that has months after my fall, I began to put my foot to the happened to me. ground while I used my crutches. At first, I was terrified I’m not a great admirer of doctors; I’ve resented the of putting any weight on the leg that had four screws in treatment that Catherine and our kids have received it. Gradually I regained a little confidence. from many doctors in the past. I hate the airs that so On 13 January, with the encouragement of the many doctors give themselves. Having said that. I hope physio, I began to walk on one crutch, putting about my tribute to my surgeon seems all the more fulsome, half my weight on the bad leg at each step. On the same lie introduced himself to me in hospital as Rick Cun­ day, I began to drive the car again — a strange feeling ningham. He is the only specialist I've ever heard of who after haring been a passenger for three months with charges the scheduled fee for consultations in his Giles or Catherine at the wheel. rooms. He has no airs about himself whatever, and yet Today, the physio made me walk with one crutch I heard some of his colleagues gasping with admiration held as though it’s a walking stick — not under the when they saw the X-ray of my leg at seven weeks. shoulder but with the hand gripping the middle part. Roderick Cunningham, I salute you. Every’ day for the Next week I’m going to buy a stick for support. Then 1’11 rest of my life, I’ll remember you with gratitude. throw away the crutches. (20 January 1995)

Through a false ceiling ______

DON ASHBY could say that being acquainted with I3RG is a health 49 Darlington Grove hazard. ■# Coburg Victoria 3058 I am only allowed to sit up for brief periods, and even when I get a back brace fitted it will probably be a while before I get this finished. How did the indomitable ’Curiouser and curiouscr’ quoth the sainted Rev. Dodg­ Donald end up in such a parlous state? son as he rolled a reefer. The Metaphysical Review and Has the Fair}' Shop phenomenon entered your pur­ Phonebook 19/20/21 landed with a foundation-jarring view? They are retail establishments that celebrate all thud on the doormat the other day and in it was a letter those aspects of the Simples perception of Faerie con­ from me. In that letter I was reporting that the reason I demned byj. R. R. Tolkien in his essay‘On Fair}’Stories’. had time to write was that I was recovering from a back They originate in that home of schlock and the fast injury. In this letter I am reporting that the reason I have buck, the US of A. and are springing up all over town time to write this letter is that I am recovering from a like fly agarics under a pine tree. Last year I made a back injury. It would seem that your SmoFish influence thirty-fool dragon for a hippy shop in Daylcsford, and extends even into the Twilight Zone. I cannot over­ the word has got around that if you want That Sort of emphasis lhal taking such steps is not necessary! I just Thing in your shop, nursery or boudoir, I’m your per­ haven’t got round to replying to No. 18, and now that son. I was installing a Mermaids’ Cavern story-telling it’s too late, rest assured that it will not happen again! room at the rear of one of these places, and ended up So here I am up for the first lime hurriedly replying feet first through a false ceiling into a loading dock onto before the sky falls on my head. I am listening to Brian a parked car. Eight metres and a very dented car later I Eno and Harold Budd Taking Tiger Mountain and learn­ was lying on a cold concrete floor. I contrived to get ing Windows, Word and a new keyboard. You can prob­ myself into the recover}' position, waiting for a Good ably hear the swearing from Collingwood. Samurai. # Even the normally unflappable Elaine was heard to utter the odd cuss word when learning Word. The (Stand by for a brief period of temporal adjustment... trouble is that it seems to be the most logical and beep beep twerple hummrnmminmmm. It is now nine easily learned of all the word-processing/desktop- weeks later: 13 October 1994, 2:47:34 p.m.) publishing programs, and it ain’t. Taking the contents of this issue as a whole, you One turned up eventually, and was quite surprised to

54 find me huddled in a corner being plaintive. He called discussing his golf handicap. The nurses were magnifi­ an ambulance that, on arrival, immediately called an­ cent, understaffed and harried by Kennett's morons. other one: the intensive-care unit. Before my fall I had They actually did the doctoring, made most of the been spraying underwater scenes on the walls of the decisions, and were advocates for the patients on the room, and as a result my skin was covered with blue and odd moments when the doctors showed up. green overspray. This led the ambulance wallahs to believe I was about to stop breathing any minute. (More temporal adjustment. . . twerple beep beep . . . After they had put me on oxygen laced with some­ Wednesday, 4 January 1995:) thing narcotic they assembled a complicated frame around me and heighed me off to hospital. Max had An enterprising pathologist found some blood in my arrived by this stage, having been alerted by Samaritans urine, so I had to Keep Still except when I had to fill up Inc., and was fussing over me in a very satisfactory little plastic jars. Filling those jars was about the most fashion en route. exciting thing that happened for a few days. I couldn’t When we arrived at Casualty I was surrounded by a read, there was no radio, and I had suffered enough hoard of medicos who cut off all my clothes and pro­ without forcing myself to watch television. Paul Voer- ceeded to try’ out all their medical devices on me. I was mans showed up with a Walkperson, and I was able to plumbed with poppy juice and saline, covered with lots listen to my collection of Goon Show tapes which, allied of sticky dots and plugged into more gauges, lights and to my pharmaceutically enhanced condition, helped screens than on the bridge of Millennial Falcon. After enormously. Visitors came in droves, even my brother they had established that my deathly pallor was scenic and sister-in-law. It’s remarkable the speed of the vari­ paint, everything calmed down a bit. They disconnected ous grapevines when misfortune strikes, and how lots of stuff and wheeled me into a cavernous room in quickly friends respond. I don’t think I was very com­ which loomed what appeared to be a huge gleaming municative — faces swam and that first few days blurred. continuous conveyor-type pizza oven. This device, they Slowly the nurses reduced the quantity of morphine informed me, would take pictures of thin slices of my in the drip and we were all quite surprised at how quickly spine to see if they could find any cats. I thought they the pain had subsided. Now it only hurt if I laughed or would have had more luck looking on the bed at home, tried to do the long jump. The massive doses of drugs but they left me slowly being conveyed through the had an unfortunate effect on my bowels, and while we gizzards of this blot on the national balance of pay­ waited for the blood to remove itself from my urine, the ments. While I was there they X-rayed me (and presum­ nurses tried out all their battery of laxatives. Eventually ably any resident cals). I found myself in the care of a the earth moved: almost as painful an event as the bevy of nurses when I emerged, and was spirited upstairs accident, and it seemed I was Going Home. to the wards. There was a hiatus while the nurses waited The specialist had finally got around to looking at for the doctors to decide What Was To Be Done. my GAT scans and X-rays and had agreed with me that By now the media had somehow found out, and I was they looked a mess, and that time wounds all heels, and having my fifteen minutes of fame. Typically, the news­ I had to keep still in bed for a long time, and I may as rodents had got the wrong end of the stick, and had well do it at home as they needed the bed. (This was gotten the idea that I had fallen twenty metres into a after he had told me I had two compressed fractures of concrete bear pit and thought they had found An Amaz­ the vertebrae, four simple fractures and several smashed ing Thing to spice up the nightly bland fare of genocide, ribs.) So the heroic Carey Handfield showed up in his exploitation, devastation, pollution, famine and ham­ posh car. Everyone agreed that a decrepit long-wheel­ burger ads. The hospital told them to bugger off, and base Nissan Van was not a suitable ambulance. I was they did so. transported home with a collection of medical-looking During all this, the pain was gradually succumbing furniture and admonitions from the nurses to Take It to the pharmaceuticals, and the realisation was sinking Easy. in that I was probably not going to get up in a few days In the first months of my convalescence I clocked up and get on with my life. Max, pregnancy and all, was the Movieland record for hiring the greatest number of being a bump of strength, but I could see that she was videos. I quickly got to hate Radio National. When you Very Worried. If there was one thing I have learned over have to listen to it all day and night the welter of the the theatrical years, it is that the inevitable is after all unconsidered prattling of politically correct, flavour-of- inevitable, otherwise it would have been called some­ the-month, insubstantial, banal poseurs slowly suffo­ thing else. cates you with despair. Even adrift as I was in a field of poppies, I did not I am not a good patient and hate inactivity, as you need the continuous admonition of the nurses ‘not to know. It took every inch of my self control to buckle move' to know that I was in serious trouble. Gangs of down and take the long view of my eventual recovery doctors kept coming around and asking me if I could against the daily grind of inactivity. Whatsaved my sanity move my legs or wriggle my toes, and seemed surprised was my wife Max who, despite her bump, was always that I could. The nurses hovered and, in between dab­ supportive and cheerful, if less than enthusiastic about bing at the paint (they called me Thejolly Green Giant) cooking, and my friends Paul and Carey. They went to refused to let me move. the library, got me videos, bought me pizzas, played Many visitors came, one of them a specialist who kept cards, chatted, fussed and worried. Thank you all. saying reassuring things like ‘I really must look at your CAT scans’ over his shoulder as he wandered past, (Continued on Page 83)

55 FEATURE LETTERS LIFE AND TIMES

Without realising it, I was creating the old-style classic SHAYNE McCORMACK form of letterzine; they wrote back to me with comments HENRY GASKO on my letter; then they started commenting on each other’s letters; and so it went. Some of them now write DAVE PIPER direct to each other, though they’ve never met. I didn’t JOHN BROSNAN think of SYSas a zine in the beginning, but now I realise it is, and that it’s the kind of zine I always wanted to ROBERT DAY produce. When I started out in Aus fandom I tried MARK LAWSON producing the kind of thing I thought other people JEANNE MEALY would want to see (I suppose most younger fans want to impress other fans with their cleverness, as well as earn CASEY JUNE WOLF ego points) but they never really pleased me. Now I try for a happy compromise — I do what I like and I try to do what my correspondents like as well. If it ever gets tedious or stops attracting responses, I’ll quit. And right now it’s just the size I can afford — I send out only about Life after Galaxy 25 copies. I feel privileged to have received So You Say. It sounds much like what TMR has turned into: letters surrounded by new material to spark off further SHAYNE McCORMACK letters of comment. The trouble with SYS is that I 49 Orchard Road cannot discuss most the topics that interest the other Bass Hill NSW 2197 correspondents. (I don’t watch sf tv series, for instance.) Still, you sent me the latest issue, Shayne, and I'll try to find time to reply properly. After I left Galaxy Book Shop I did a sort of reverse trip, fan activity wise. When I started I was a media fan As to what I’ve been doing otherwise — not much. (though I didn’t call it that then, of course) who even­ After twelve very tiring years at Galaxy I allowed myself tually mutated into a general fan who ended up making a couple of years of doing bugger all. I do temporary a living selling the stuff. After I left Galaxy I slipped away and casual works of various types to earn myself some from general fandom (not that there was much activity income, but most of the time I laze around. I’ve been in Sydney to slip away from) back into media fandom, trying to write, but most of my writing has been directed which is much more active. But even that became dull. towards media fanzines. If I ever do get published pro­ Media fandom has developed the much-discussed fessionally, I don’t think anybody will be more surprised ‘couch potato’ syndrome, where all that is done at club than me. meetings is to sit on a seat and have episodes shown to I really didn’t think you’d be interested in getting So you while you pay for the privilege. Gradually I found You Say. My memories of you were of a very literary, myself not having much to do with any kind of fandom erudite young man more interested in discussing the at all. works of Philip K. Dick than chatting about the latest But I guess you can take the woman out of fandom, film or computer problems or the other sorts of stuff I but it’s harder to ignore the old fannish urges ... they talk about. just lie there, sort of dormant. During my time at Galaxy (28 February 1994) I had made a number of good friends who didn’t fit into neat fannish pigeonholes — they aren’t active fans, but Surely I was never like that! These days I'm a jaded they have a lot of the characteristics of fans, in that they middle-aged man, content to grab the time to get back read and enjoy science fiction or fantasy and often watch to any fannish or creative activity at all. sf on tv or in films. And we found we had a lol of other interests in common as well. After a couple of years away from Galaxy I wanted to let some of them know I was still alive, and to see how they were, so I sent out the first issue of So You Say.

56 magic in pseudo-medieval lands. Ho hum. Word pro­ cessors have a lot to answer for. The books I’ve enjoyed Life in the country most, in fact, have been Emily’s juveniles, by people such as Robert Westall, Nicholas Fisk, John Rowe Town­ send, and a host of others. They are a sensible length and tend to get on with the story rather than laying on HENRY GASKO the padding in order to stretch and idea into a trilogy McGregors Road (or worse). Beveridge The horror scene is a little more promising, but blood and gore are too often substituted for true horror. Victoria 3653 Dan Simmons is very good (although his sf, especially Hyperion, is crap), and there is a lot of good short horror The pseudo-country lifestyle on our twenty acres goes fiction about. on fairly happily. Wc have a big wooden house that sits (3 September 1994) on top of a hill overlooking the Upper Plenty Valley. A friend once described it as ‘living in a ski chalet’. That We've actually visited your place twice, and thought was both its good and bad points, of course. Not that we it would make a good sort of home if only it did not get much snow, and the views are fantastic. However, we demand that the inhabitants drive a car. I'm not sure also get phenomenal winds from the north. The first how both of you have eventually fared under The week here, the roof of our water tank blew off; we were Cuts: the routinely idiotic policies brought in by the out there at 2 a.m. with Judy spread-eagled on the top current government to drive capable and intelligent people out of good jobs. # to keep the corrugated iron down, while I threw rocks up from down below. Fortunately George from next This year has been busy. Judy tore a ligament in her knee door came over to lend a hand. while doing tae kwon do. She is off training for two We now have two cows, three horses, fifteen chick­ months now. ens, and about 100 fruit trees scattered around the The following week, Emily broke her arm. This is the paddock. We also have an in-house menagerie of one third break she has had in about four years. The doctors dog, one cat, thirteen fish and four guinea pigs. On the said there was nothing wrong with her bones. She’s just good days, it’s magnificent being outside with the sun clumsy. Luckily it was the day after her dance exam and shining and the countryside all around. On other days, the last Pony Club meeting of the year. That has meant there’s the hour-long drive to and from the city, feeding a couple of days at home after the break, and several the animals in the rain and generally trying to find time trips to the hospital to get the plaster checked. In fact, to combine about three lifestyles into one. she is onto her third plaster. The first one was too loose Judy has been having an up-and-down year. She after the swelling went down, and then this week they finally left Prahran after driving down there twice a week decided to put on a short one. (The first one was fingers for the past five years. She eventually started an after­ to upper arm; this one stops below her elbow.) school maths tuition program called Kumon (it’sJapa­ The cast should come off in the first week ofjanuary, nese), as well as working one and a half days at the Shire so we’ll have most of the holidays for activities. Last year, of Diamond Valley, and working two half-days a week as you might not have heard that she broke a bone in her an Infant Welfare Sister at a chemist’s in Mill Park. upper arm just below the shoulder only a week before The kids are both fine. Emily is now ten and Anne is Christmas, and had to have it in a sling most of the nearly eight. They both go to the local primary school, holidays in Newcastle. (By the end of the holidays, she which is a two-room school that escaped the recent cuts was swimming with her sling.) — its numbers are actually increasing because a lot of Otherwise we are all fine. Anne has just finished a parents bring their kids from the nearby big town of year with the Australian Girls Choir. The last bit was a Wallan. They both have very busy schedules; Emily is concert in front of about 3000 people at the Melbourne into riding, tae kwon do and dancing. Anne does tae Concert Hall. She loves to sing, and spends most of the kwon do, takes guitar lessons and is in the /Australian time listening to Golden Oldies from the sixties. She Girls Choir. Mum and Dad do a lot of driving. knows them almost as well as I do, and I was raised with That’s about all that’s new. We are both concentrat­ them. She is also studying guitar with one of the teachers ing on surviving the next few years, and then getting at her school, who insists on teaching them all the old back out into the world a bit more when the girls are Creedence Clearwater Revival songs. Very strange, con­ older. At the moment, the most exciting parts of our sidering she is in her mid-twenties. social life are the odd Disney film and dinner at Pizza You may have heard that the Austin Hospital (where Hut. I am still working three days a week) and the Repatria­ And reading, of course. I have an hour each Wednes­ tion Hospital are going to be merged. That is the big day in Rosanna while Anne goes to choir practice, and news around here these days, and everyone is wonder­ have been going to the local library, much as I used to ing how it will affect them. The last word was that the do as a kid while my mother did the grocery shopping. Repat site had been chosen as the site of the combined I have been trying to catch up on the science fiction and hospital. The two hospitals are supposed to merge offi­ horror scene that has passed by me in the last ten years. cially on 1 July 1995. But it will be many years after that But there seems to be very little that’s worth reading. before we all move together onto one campus, especially The stacks seem to consist of the multi-volume tales of if they have to rebuild all the Austin facilities over there.

57 Judy is also just going through an amalgamation, this you both must have felt. . . . bit like wearing very tight time with local governments. Since she left Prahran Y-fronts; does you no good! Something to do with your early in 1974 she has been working 1.5 days a week at virility or somcsuch. Course, never bothered me as I Diamond Valley as a coordinator of Infant Welfare reckon I lost mine at age eight, when me eyes starting there, as well as two half- days as an Infant Welfare sister getting bad and I developed an incipient twitch in me at a chemist’s in Mill park (having a little bit each way). right hand. Diamond Valley hasjust been split, half going to Heidel­ Say you break something, y'know? and it hurts. Some berg and half to Eltham. The official announcement was bright spark will always say something like ‘Well, Fred just made last week, and now comes the part where they down the road did the same thing and he’s managing.’ start choosing which set of staff they want in each new I say ‘I don’t bloody care; it’s no damn condolence to council. Effectively they will have three sets of staff to me. It still hurts.’ But, but, I had this mental picture of choose from for two new councils. We can only wait to a shaggy dark-haired Wild Colonial Boy . . . and you’ve see what will happen. gone grey. Weee . . . great. I’d send you a picture of me Other than that, we arc pretty well. It is very dry here, but I realise that Elaine would only pine and dream of as everywhere. Our last rain was over a month ago. But What Never Can Be! we arc busily pumping water up from the dam for our Cath and the half-century of daughters (still at garden and fruit trees and they arc all going well. Our home) are fine. In ten days we celebrate 30 years of main concern is to buy enough hay to feed our two wedded bliss. I only did one bright thing in me life and horses and two cows next winter. There is very’ little hay that was conning Cath into marriage . . . but, only whis­ around here, and prices are very high. But fortunately per it, she hasn’t tumbled it yet! we don’t need a lot. Many of the local farmers are talking Ah Nostalgia was rampant upon reading Phil’s (it’s about whether they will survive, which is quite surpris­ Ben Webster and Art Tatum thrilling me now) lists. I’m ing. Most people think the drought is just affecting the with Gerald Murnane on the early fifties stuff... I love interior, but it is affecting everyone around here. the stuff. I’m not too sure of the intrinsic worth of it. It (19 December 1994) may well be just nostalgia for a simpler time when I was young, but I do have very fond memories of the people •X- I’ll leave you there, because 1 haven't heard how he mentions. In fact, for a few years now I’ve been much your lives have eventually been disrupted by buying compilation tapes of early fifties records. The 78s assorted Kennettisms. Presumably, you enjoyed the I had have long gone. F'rinstancc, when I’m in ... er ... breaking of the drought during this year, and are well me cups (to put it delicately) I always maintain that the prepared if it settles in again this summer. greatest record ever was ‘Hold My Hand’ by Don Cor­ nell that I play non-stop when I’m doing the washing up. Even when I'm sober I like it. Ah, Johnny Ray ... 1 had a great record by him and the Four Lads called ‘I’m Gonna Walk and Talk With My Lord’ that was just . . . just. . . words fail me. Cheap at twice the price! Anyway, you have some blanks in these lists, and although I am very far from sure, I do have a few suggestions. 1950’s No. 1, I think, was probably by Billy Colton and his band with Alan Breeze on vocal. No. 4 DAVE PIPER was by Frankie Laine. No, it wasn’t. I’m mixing it up, 1 7 Cranley Drive think. I’ll have another glass of this triffic Aussie wine. Ruislip 1951’s No. 5 was, I think, by Debbie Reynolds and Middlesex HA4 6BZ Donald O’Connor. England (You know, if you ever see it, you must get yourself a copy of this Webster/Tatum record . . . it’s wonderful. Jeez!! I never thought I’d say it . . . but I’m having Pablo label. The Tatum Group Masterpieces, PBL 213. I trouble typing this on me trusty Brother De Luxe port­ unreservedly recommend it. able manual after spending the last coupla years bashing 1954’s No. 5: I’m far from certain, but I don’t think away at a piss-’oling computer. All day I work a program the Four Lads recorded ‘Heart of My Heart’. I reckon and I find it bloody boring, but I have to admit that the it was the Four Aces, one of my very favourite groups. keyboard and this newfangled bloody thing called ‘elec­ They had a double-sided 78 of‘Garden in the Rain’ and tricity’ certainly make typing a lot easier than giving ‘Tell Me Why', which was almost as good as the First yerself a hernia bashing away at this. But I, and you!! Moon Landing. There were three versions of ‘The High must suffer for our art. Er. and the Mighty’ in the US charts at the lime of the film. An’ I haven’t even poured out me first Friday glass They all included the whistling bit, and I think the yet. . . ’ang about, I shall return . . . right. . . Camel biggest hit was by ... urn ... a ‘Leroy’ something, but I over there, Jacob’s Creek 1992 over there and (Doug just can’t remember the surname. Colour me old and Barbour would appreciate this) Count Basie and Zoot senile. Sims flowing in like honey in my ears (copyright Eddie Now listen. I’m telling you, you must get this Tatum Condon circa sometime) from Over There. record. I’ve had it for years and every time I play it I’m Before I forget... Very relieved you’ve at last moved transported. Honest, honest, it’s great. out of that PO box. Always worried me at how cramped Mind you, so is this Aussie Shiraz Cabernet from

58 South-east Australia . . . only £4.35 a bottle. Cheap at badly organised reunion, that of Oaklelgh High School twice the pricel some years ago — nobody wore name tags, and (16 September 1994) because the reunion attempted to cover the whole range of former students, few people recognised each One of the best things to happen this year was to other. At our Grade 6 Reunion, we could all be be dragged out of bed at 8.30 one recent Saturday suitably astonished when we read each others’ name morning to hear on the phone the sylvan tones of tags. Dave Piper from Ruislip. That voice I heard last The Reunion taught me that most people, even sometime in January 1974. Dave had been getting those who were ghastly when they were kids, improve stuck into the Jacob s Creek late at night, and began with age. Childhood is an unfortunate event from to wonder whatever happened to the next issue of The which we can recover, sort of. -X- Metaphysical Review. I made my usual excuses, and vowed that if Dave Piper needed the next issue I It may appear that I produce books at an indecent would Just have to produce it. rate, but it’s an illusion. I’m the laziest writer I know. It’s still very difficult to find information about Bedlam, the last HAK novel, came out in 1992, and The music from the pre-rock ’n‘ roll 1950s. The jazz scene Opoponax Invasion was published in November 1993. (A from that period is well documented, but not pop paperback version of the latter has just come out and a music. The hit parades had begun, but often they were only weekly Top Tens. There are no big glossy reviewer pointed out that I had spelt ‘Opoponax’ books about that period. Magic, a local AM radio wrong, and he’s right!) I’m just finishing a novel for station, attempts to fill in the gaps, but it only plays a Legend, Random House, called Damned and Fancy. It’s random selection of records from the forties, fifties a lightweight comic fantasy, the first of three. I’ve and early sixties. If only it would broadcast people finished with Gollancz. Since they were taken over by talking about the late forties and early fifties! Cassell they’ve been in an even bigger mess than before. Main problem is an inability, through lack of sales staff, to get their paperbacks into the bookshops. They keep saying things will change for the better but they never do. And recently Richard Evans, in charge of the sf list, was rushed to hospital a few weeks ago with a chest HAK novels infection and suspected cirrhosis of the liver . . . Beyond Bedlam came out to almost unanimous critical and Ortygia tales condemnation. It got a lot of publicity when it came out, mainly because its brief theatrical release coincided with the latest bout of moral panic whipped up by the tab­ loids and various MPs over horror videos, with the result JOHN BROSNAN that the censors withdrew its 18 video certificate. But Flat 2 despite all the publicity it only lasted a couple of weeks Ortygia House in the few cinemas it had been released in. One of the 6 Lower Road main problems with it is that there is no explanation at any point as to what is actually going on. I did point this Harrow out to the producer, Paul Brooks, when I first saw the Middlesex HA2 ODA movie, but he disagreed, and still does. But the critics, England and no doubt the audiences, were left mystified — some critics presumed it was all supposed to be a series of I was very intrigued by your piece ‘The Reunion’. Seeing dream sequences (only people who had read the book as we’re of the same generation, I could identify with would be able to figure out what was supposed to be the experience, though I’m not sure I’d like to encoun­ going on, but such people are in an extremely small ter my own class of 1958 primary school colleagues, and minority). I’m sure the experience would be equally unsettling for Ironically, at the time of the film’s release the leading them to encounter me. I was surprised that your re­ lady, Elizabeth Hurley, was practically unknown, but union went off so well with such a high turnout, and not shortly afterwards she leapt to fame as a result of the only once but twice. I was under the impression that success of another film — Four Weddings and a Funeral when people tried to arrange such reunions they invari­ No, she wasn’t in it but had the good fortune to be the ably went terribly wrong. And as hard as I try, I can only girlfriend of its star, Hugh Grant. At that film’s premier remember a few faces and names from my class of 1958, she arrived wearing — almost — a little black shredded which would have been at the Rosemary* Primary School dress held together —just — by large safety pins. This in Shenton Park, Perth. I clearly remember my two best was splashed over every tabloid paper the next day and friends of the time, the oddly named Richard Bone and she hasn’t been out of the papers ever since. We're Ross Albones (hard to forget names like that!), but I hoping that she’s still as famous when Bedlam comes out long ago lost touch with them. I still have occasional on video early next year (after some cuts were made the contact from a friend I knew from an earlier school, and 18 rating was restored). I suggested that the publicity we exchange letters maybe once every two or three catchline be: ‘Your chance to see Elizabeth Hurley fully years. dressed.' Against my better judgement I’m involved with Paul Wai Robinson, main organiser of the reunion (and Brooks on another film project. It’s based on the first now a TMR contributor), learned a lot from going to a

59 HAK novel, Slimer, but has been changed to Proteus for obvious reasons. I’ve done three versions of the screen­ play for Brooks, none of which I’ve received any money Train spotting in Austria for so far. The deal is I get paid when and if the film starts shooting. Brooks says that shooting will begin in January next year, but is still not sure whether it will be shot here or in Canada. And as far as I know only one ROBERT DAY member of the cast has been decided upon — the ‘Ashgrove’ lumbering Craig Fairbrass from Beyond Bedlam (as with Didgley Lane Bedlam, Proteus is supposed to be another ’vehicle’ for Fillongley him, but in reality the perfect vehicle for Craig would be a forklift truck). Coventry CV7 8DQ The latest stumbling block is a batch of suggestions England for script changes that Brooks has just received from an American video company, Trimark, which is supposedly This year, no Christmas Card of Comment, but a real, putting up $500,000 of the budget. Therefore, says honest-to-God letterto bring you up to date with matters Brooks, we have to take these suggestions seriously, even chez Day (not too many of those) and perhaps a few though he agrees with me that most of them are both comments on your last few fanzines. absurd and inane. Even though I’m going to be pissed 1994 was an interesting year. I was headhunted off at not getting any money for all my work I'm betting (within Ofwat, the water industry economic regulator I that this film is not going to happen. I hope I’m wrong work for) to a new Quality Assurance Branch. The name but... is a bit of a misnomer, because it actually deals with data As you can see, I’m still in Ortygia House. This flat, quality provided by water companies to Ofwat, rather like its occupier, is rapidly disintegrating. The large than dealing with questions of quality assurance within curtains in the front room arc particularly embarrassing the organisation itself. (That will come later — perhaps — you can sit here by the computer and actually watch in the second half of 1995.) Data that Ofwat gets from bits fall off them. I need more space, the furniture needs companies is ‘certified’ by independent Reporters, nor­ to be replaced, the kitchen is tiny, there is no central mally attached to big engineering consultancy firms. heating, no more space for bookshelves and no space Our big project for 1994 was rc-selting price limits for a washing machine (not that I could afford one). (the originals haring been set at the time the industry From your comment about the place in a previous letter was privatised in near acrimony during direct negotia­ of yours I see that you have this flat mixed up with the tions between the companies and the government). It basement one in which Chris Priest, and later Lisa involved a lot of information from the companies over Tuttle, lived. Mine’s on the ground floor above it and their business plans for the next ten years, and a lot of much smaller. Colin Greenland, who also lives on the number-crunching from us. The end result was 31 new same floor as me, lucked out when he arrived — his flat price limits announced on 28 July and an office full of is twice the size of mine but he pays the same rent. Still, exhausted people, who promptly scattered to all four compared to the average rent for a self-contained flat in corners of the globe on holiday. I waited a full three London mine is still ridiculously cheap and therefore I weeks before escaping for ten days to Austria. can’t afford to move. I shouldn’t moan (but I will). My travel agent had secured me a ten-day rail pass (16 October 1994) that gave unlimited travel on the State railways for the sum of £180. This represented extremely good value for 1 hope David Pringle doesn’t get upset if I say the money. Austria has a reputation for being expensive, most interesting material I've read in Interzone were and I suppose the tourist traps can be. I chose to avoid the fannish articles a year or so ago about the writers most of them. I was having a railway enthusiast’s holiday who’ve lived at Ortygia House and the incredibly after all. In Hanover I did pull in the odd Imperial ancient landlady who welcomed them. I've read since Palace, quaint town, Baroque church or cable-car ride. that the landlady died at the age of 100, but that the building is still standing and offering accommodation. These tended to be the expensive bits. Travel in Vienna The Barton Finks of Harrow arc still living there. was cheap — 24-hour public transport pass for 25 schil­ lings (about £2) and efficient. Food was excellent, and could be had inexpensively if you were careful. Beer was SURE. YooU 'fou wouLDtfrX plentiful. Austrian television was a revelation: 1950s/ yoTe. por VJMT TO N\ISS | early 1960s values, with a lot of UK and US material PlLLTlAlS, / dubbed into German. I spent a few days around Vienna, then moved to U'K’t., y VOU?/ Innsbruck (where some unpleasant weather set in), and finally moved to the south — a town called Villach in Carinthia — for the last couple of days. Carinthia is near the Slovenian border; indeed, at one point I found myself marooned because of an unusual efficiency fail­ ure of the State railways, and occupied myself in killing a couple of hours by taking a walk in the general direction of the Slovenian border. I turned back with

60 this seemed to be getting a bit like something out of The the more Thatcherite policies that the previous Liberal Ificress File. (i.e. conservative) government had refrained from The countryside was delightful, the people reason­ implementing. Under this ’Labor’ government the ably friendly, and the hotels comfortable. Perhaps the income differences between the richest and poorest most gratifying thing was the way I kept on getting sections of the community have become very much mistaken for a local (tourists kept on asking me direc­ greater than they were in the seventies. Pushed to the right, the conservative opposition will only be much tions). I am about six feet tall, quite heavily built, have worse when it achieves power, following the lead of a reddish beard, glasses and thinning hair in the fair-to- the fascist policies of the current Victorian and blond category. Also I did not carry a backpack or Western Australian governments. Don’t assume that obvious camera bag (though I did take the photo­ the arrival of a Labor government in Britain will graphic gear around in a large hold-all). I dislike the improve the situation. idea of going anywhere where my appearance might shout ‘tourist’, and it seems that I avoided that quite [Rc TMR 19/20/21:] British fandom went through well. Speaking what turned out to be passable German a film-making stage. A fan called John Collick (since helped, as well as the ability to pick up local recent vanished) produced a slide show illustrating one of Dave variants fairly quickly. Langford's space opera pastiches Sex Pirates of the Blood I hope to go again, though not in 1995: Worldcon Asteroid (about 1979-80). Later he was the force behind and all that. 1995 will also, doubtless, see me do another a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western pastiche at Mexicon year as secretary to a local modelling club. I was landed 2, coupled with a stop-frame horror short about a homi­ with this job by two different people. They inde­ cidal shirt filmed byJohn and Eve Harvey. The two films pendently cornered me at last year’s AGM and said on one reel won a prize in a Leeds Film Festival when it ‘You’d make a good secretary’. So I gave in to the was entered in passing. (The Harveys were driving back inevitable. This has tied up a number of weekends to London and giving Simon Ounsley a lift; they stopped taking the club’s exhibition stand up and down the on the way in Leeds, entered the film, and were as­ country. tounded to be given an award.) I also anticipated doing another year as trade union British fandom's film-making came to an end when representative for Ofwat. If I’m not very careful, this will Collick and Ounslcy’s next mega-production, L’invasion probably also mean that I get wheedled into one of the des bollards enormes, was stolen, together with the video Union magazines' Editorial Boards. All my years in record that contained the master tape. It was never fandom tend to give me an edge when it comes to setting recovered, and British fandom gave up in disgust (the out page layouts or producing a guest editorial or some­ way it does with all sorts of other things). thing similar. I’m sure Joe Nicholas has kept you up to Have now fitted the battery to the car. /\nd succeeded speed on the progress-so-called of the government of in getting it started. For a supposedly weatherproof John Major, currently running at 15 per cent in the Swedish product, my car seems very prone to under­ popularity polls and falling. In a desperate attempt to bonnet condensation and damp. Despite the liberal use dredge up money from somewhere to bribe the elector­ of moisture-repellant sprays, under particular condi­ ate with tax cuts before the next election, the govern­ tions of dampness and temperature the thing will take ment is selling off everything it can, including huge three or four goes to wheeze into life, then stagger off chunks of the Civil Service. There is the fascinating on two or three cylinders until the engine gets warm prospect of Inland Revenue personal tax records being enough to dry out, whereupon the rest of the engine held by a private company, for example. Now there's a cuts in with a punch . . . ah, the glories of an English risk to confidentiality if ever I heard one, but the gov­ winter! (Perhaps the Swedes only get cold dry winters, ernment persists nonetheless. The private sector is which could explain much.) I have this theory that assumed to be more efficient than the public sector, so Britain only gained an Empire because it was the only despite all the evidence to the contrary', the government way to guarantee the hope of somewhere warm and dry persists in trying to sell the one to the other, even being to live. Of course, we had to overdo it. prepared to load the balance against the public sector I worry a lot about Barr)' Humphries. I agree with when necessary to make sure that their friends win all you, Bruce, that he is one of Australia’s funniest men: the bids. certainly, in his earlier cartoon work; and I have never This runs so very close to corruption — public serv­ recovered from an early Dame Edna comment in Strat- ices being sold to companies that support the Conser­ ford-on-Avon, on seeing a Morris Traveller ‘Look, view­ vative Party — that the whole thing cannot be long in ers — a half-timbered car.' Increasingly I worry that the blowing up in the government’s face. It cannot be soon Dame Edna persona is taking over Barr)' Humphries. Sir enough for me, as well as for many others, of course, the Les Patterson, the disgustingly funny Australian cultural government has divisions within its ranks over the ques­ attache, has disappeared (I always thought that was far tion of greater European unity, and these divisions are too much over the top until I saw the party the Austra­ being exploited by the Labor Party to try to bring down lian High Commissioner threw, in all senses of the word, the government. We are not due for another general at Australia House in London when you won the Amer­ election until May 1997 at the latest. But it may not last ica’s Cup), and all we see now is a whining grotesque in that long. Let us hope .. . ever more unbelievable situations. I have seen demonic possession and its name is Edna Everage. You could be in for a shock. Our ’Labor' I see from your response to Mae Strelkov that you government has since 1982 put into effect many of haven’t given up the idea of travel altogether. Glad to

61 hear itl I’m certain that the UK leg of the Gillespie/ Elaine and I. both working at home, hold a Cochrane World Tour could be made interesting. I permanent non-cleaning-up contest. I usually lose. cannot offer accommodation for the Midlands (though My eyesight is very much better than hers at seeing dirt and dust. iK- I’m sure I could find some) but I have a lot of practice at being Native Guide/Chauffcur. [Re. TMR 19/20/21:] It’s quite all right to dream of me In the days when I was more active in UK fandom as a train robber. I’m flattered that anyone should than I am now, the only thing more worrying than being dream of me at all, even in such a role. Others confess told ’Joe Nicholas hated your fanzine’ was being told to nightmares about me or, worse, forgetting all about ‘Joe Nicholas loved your fanzine’. I find it interesting me. that Joe has given up a lot of political activism to allow You asked about my career. I recently qualified for him time for other things. My experience in the trade long service leave at the Financial Review— 10 weeks for union movement suggests that there arc two sorts of trade unionists: those for whom activism is their hobby 10 years, and no, I haven’t taken the leave. I’m J8 plus (it has much in common with that other hobby, fandom margin these days. Although the pay is comfortable, — a lot of people in it look the same as fans, for moving into a house, buying a second car to shuttle example), and those who didn’t run fast enough when between station and home, and preparing for a baby — jobs were being handed out. I fall into the second yes, one is due in five weeks — have pushed me into category, though the UK political situation and polite taking an immense amount of freelance work in order demands from other people within my union keep to pay for everything and maintain lifestyle. Like you, I threatening to drag me into the first. have problems with my Visa Card. I do get a little worried, though, that Joe considers The freelance work varies from interesting — I am the world his entertainment. I don’t want to be enter­ correspondent for the London science magazine Nature tained by the world. There are things and places I want and do a little work for Jane’s Information Group — to to see so that I can learn about them, and I suppose tedious. In the next two weeks I have to write an 1800- learning is a form of entertainment for those who seek word roundup of the management consulting industry it voluntarily. What I cannot stomach, and which I in Australia. Sigh! suspect Joe couldn’t if he stopped to think for a second, At the Financial Review itse\f, I’m on a section called is wandering around flaunting, by my very’ presence, my ’surveys’, which are those special multi-page reports you status as a fortunate member of a technologically see occasionally in other papers. Again the work varies advanced western society. from interesting (shipping, sports marketing) to dull By extension, I suppose I therefore enjoy sf as a (quality management, leasing) and it’s not the place any speculation on the abilities and pitfalls that such a reporter who wants to further his career would go. It’s society might display and run into. I don’t want sf to look a comedown from the time I wrote editorials, but I don’t back into the present; I want it to look ahead and throw mind, as it gives me the flexibility to do freelance work, up some markers as to what might be coming up, so that and my byline still appears quite frequently in the news I am less likely to be surprised. section, mainly because the editors keep asking me if I So when Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes World have any stories to fill space. President, I’ll be ready. I guess all the above means that my career is going (1 January 1995) well, at least to the extent that we arc drifting forwards financially, rather than going rapidly backwards, al­ 1 don't have the stamina for a World Tour. Elaine, though we will have to tighten our controls on Visa. But however, has. so you might yet see her in your area. I will not make it to major editor level, in part because People believe that I’m a Nice Person until they meet I don’t want to get there. I have vague plans to build up me. so I stay this side of the computer. -X- my overseas contacts into something more substantial if and when 1 gel tired of the Review. However, it’s still just a vague idea. For the moment I’m staying put. As for the real news, the state of play in fiction writing, I’m still in there trying, but progress is very slow, as a lot of my spare time is occupied with freelance. I've Waiting for the final draft only just finished the second draft of my sf book ‘The Dream Shops’, and what with freelance and the other odds and ends I do — I’m supposed to be writing a major article on armament manufacturers in the nine­ teenth century for a military’ history magazine — not to MARK LAWSON mention the real time-waster, computer games, the final 4 McKay Road draft will take some time. I’ll get there, but don’t hold Homsby Heights NSW 2077 your breath. I trust both you and the cats are well. Most of your news I know from The Metaphysical Review. I enjoyed the This might be a non-correspontlence contest, just like last edition, incidentally, especially as I got a mention. the non-cleaning-up contest I used to have with Peter Actually, now that I think about it, I got two. At one point Bums when 1 boarded with him. (Despite my consider­ you mentioned a fan who got so drunk at a MUSFA able talents at ignoring household dirt and disorder, he end-of-year dinner in a restaurant in Carlton that he had always won.)

62 to be carried out. I confess: it was me. (It was 1975.) One no more noise from being on the flight path and a very of the few, but fortunately only a few, truly sleazy busy street. The neighbours are fairly quiet, and I feel moments in my life, like the time, a few years later, when pretty safe. There are also a number of neat features that I was almost sick in the train on the way home from my really please me. The old place had no doorbell; this first office Christmas party. I rarely drink anything one has two. We have an enclosed front porch; I have stronger than light beer these days so, rest assured, plans to set up a hammock, maybe some chairs, out Sydney’s trains and restaurants are safe. there. (The porch swing may have to wait until next (19 January 1995) summer.) The living room and dining room are more spacious, and have some nice woodwork, such as the built-in buffet and book cases. The first night there, I turned off the bedroom light and laughed. We’d joked that we were looking for the sun, the moon and the stars in a new place. Someone Fortunes rising and falling had put glow-in-the-dark astronomy stickers on the ceil­ ing, so I found myself looking at the sun, the moon and the stars! Fanac consists of membership of five apas, regular JEANNE MEALY attempts to LoC fanzines and attending a few conven­ 766 Laurel Avenue tions every year (the worldcon or NASFIC and some regional cons). I suppose I could count e-mail contact St Paul too — the illegitimate offspring of the correspondence Minnesota 55104 world. I’ve been eagerly following news about the Aus­ USA tralia in '99 bid, though I really expected to be back much sooner than this after the ’85 worldcon. My fortunes have risen and fallen over the last few years. (15June 1995) I’m back doing temp work and trying to figure out what sort of ajob I want to look for.John, my SO, and I moved # The trouble is that a lot of people remember the with our two cats across the river to St Paul last fall after mental and spiritual damage that organising the on-and-off attempts over the years to find another place Aussiecon II caused. Some of the people involved are to rent or buy in Minneapolis. So far it’s been fine. One still not talking to each other or to fandom. Americans plus is that we’re closer to stores, which is handy for this seem more anxious to give Australia the '99 worldcon than we are to take it. In practical terms, we are non-driver. John’s car needs a new transmission and worried about finding the forty or fifty utterly reliable there’s no money for it, nor is anyone sure that the car fans who would be needed to manage a five-day event is worth fixing. Getting to Minicon, going to rummage for (we expect) 3000 or more people. If the '99 event sales, taking the cats to the vet — all these things and happens, probably it will go well because we will over­ more have necessitated imposing on friends for rides. organise in order to avoid the problems of Aussiecon We have to rely on feet or the bus if we want to do II. -«• anything else. The loss of freedom and spontaneity is hard, as is swallowing our pride and asking friends for help. John’s financial situation has been shaky for years, most recently because he’s been trying to pay off his parents’ estate bills. (It’s a long, horrible story.) New naming •X- People are genuinely astonished that we exist without a car. For most of the time we've been together, we haven't been able to afford one. These days we'd resent spending money on something we don't really want. Friends are generous to a fault in giving us lifts, especially in getting home from CASEY JUNE WOLF late-night events. But we do live in the inner suburbs 14-2320 Woodland Drive of a city with, by American standards, a good public Vancouver V5N 3P2 transport system, despite various governments' efforts Canada to run it down. We can get anywhere to anywhere before midnight. We used to have no trouble catching taxis home, but recently they've begun to disappear This is only the second time this has happened to on Friday and Saturday nights. We've walked from me in my role as fanzine editor: a correspondent has changed surname between issues, just like that. West Brunswick to Collingwood, although that's You've probably read Casey's notes and letters in my about our limit. Out in the wilds of Burwood, the Pender-Gunns and Ortliebs are Just about off the edge fanzines under her previous name. I saw Casey last when she was in Australia at the of our planet, but not quite. £• time of the World Convention in 1985. If she'd had the money and time to get here. I’m sure she would I’m happy because we’re renting a house all to our­ have enjoyed the reunion convention. Arcon. held in selves after nine or ten years at the ‘temporary’ place in late September. Minneapolis. It’s a two-storey, three-bedroom house not I asked Casey why she changed her name. I’m not far from downtown St Paul. No more duplex noise! Also, sure I understand the answer. X-

63 22 August 1994: not tell in my own time. I don’t know if I told you I was changing my name, but But the driving factor had nothing to do with her. I’m glad it’s done. Gradually I’m getting used to it. It Since I was twelve years old. at least, I have toyed with felt weird at first, but I knew that if I didn’t do it I’d never changing my name. I think now it’s part of changing my lay the thought to rest. Now instead of a vague sense of life and becoming who I am, who 1 love, instead of conflict, whenever I say my name I have strong and wearing forever who I was forced to be, with me buried welcome images, and it’s helping me feel much better underneath. about myself. I’ve always been called Casey, but I was baptised You asked for the story* behind the name change. I Catherine. No one ever called me that, but it was on all come from a very* troubled family, and wanted to stop of my i.d.: Catherine is ‘pure’, Casey is ‘courage’. The thinking of them every time I said my name. Also I sing first name is controlled, remote, elegant, while the and do poetry readings around town, and have a sister second is blunt, playful, ambiguous all at once. My dad, who is also a poet. For various reasons I don’t want for all he played havoc with my soul, was my fondest people to automatically associate me with her. I’m not friend when I was very young. He stepped down hard ashamed of being her sister. I just want to emerge on my very existence on the one side, and on the other gradually in my own image. I don’t want assumptions he taught me to laugh, sing, be wild at heart. (So, in made about my life based on her view of the world. For other ways, did my mom.) He gave me the name Casey instance, she identifies as native, whereas I look utterly and it means a lot to me. For one thing, it’s a sound that white and gel a lot of nonsense thrown at me whenever I like. It’s very lucky that he picked a sound that would the subject of mixed heritage comes up. We are that, it appeal to me. It feels like it means he cared. (Irrational, seems, but it’s all unremembered and undocumented but what the hell.) and not proven, and I can’t drag darker-skinnedjoanne Dad and I haven’t been in contact for six years now. around to point to all the time, and people are very Hejust suffered a stroke and forbade the people around weird about the whole topic these days. him to tell me about it (or to tell various other members More than that, it’s her writing about our home life of the family who’ve bucked his version of the truth). I that I want to distance myself from. I haven’t even come have lots of churning feelings around this man, and I to terms with it myself. I don’t know if I remember the am not certain how I will eventually resolve it. I may same family she does, the same type of events. In fact, I never see him again, whether I want to or not. In a funny don’t remember much, though I have the feelings, the way, when I changed my name, rejecting his family body memory and somatised pain, the general drift of name but keeping the name he gave me, I realise I was what happened, and a few important details that have sending away what was destructive about our family come out over time. Still, it’s my recovery, my past, and inheritance and keeping what was sweet. I was allowing I'd like a little privacy around it, to be allowed to tell or myself full choice, not just kicking back.

64 {Update, 28January 1995: In early December I wrote I almost never connect to around war and brave boys him a short note, something like, ‘Let’s end the silence. and all that and I was glad to feel it. Long ago when I We mean too much to each other. Even if we can’t fought off the life-destroying aspects of my parents’ resolve certain things, I love you and want you in my world, I lost touch with a lot that was real as well. To get life.’ I believed he wouldn’t answer and it hurt like hell, the strangling hands from around my neck I had to stop but I needed to open the door. He hasn’t answered, but feeling sympathy for the strangler. To stop feeling sym­ a burden has lifted, anyway.) pathy for the strangler I had to stop being entirely my ‘WolT came next. I was trying to find a name that self, because I did have tenderness and it was real and I would blend in. Preferably it would have a meaning I couldn’t risk it. would like, but primarily I didn’t want to attract atten­ The leap here is that I had to stop feeling much for tion to myself. Johnson would’ve have been okay. the men and women who threw themselves into the war Marie’s-Granddaughter or Fcather-in-Flight were out. effort because the meaning of that world was so twisted, So was Bear, Sowthistle, Wolf . . . it seemed to me, in the eyes of the people around me, One day I noticed that I felt annoyed whenever I saw and because it was important to them, and I had to get the name Wolf(e). Why should so-and-so be allowed that them out of me. The same people who thought those name when — it clicked. I was rejecting the name I really men were brave called me a liar when I said that I and wanted because I didn’t want to stand out. I have always others around me were being abused, either physically loved wolves. In fact, I love all wild nature, even when it or sexually or simply in the way we were seen or spoken scares me, but when I was very young wolves held a to, and how our lives were forced to be. It’s hard to particular intensity for me. I could feel myself streaming follow and then relate the chaotic links all these things away with them over the frozen tundra. Away. Away. My formed in my mind: the conclusions I formed about my pack, wild and heavenly and rugged, with only the world, what I was ordered to believe instead, how it harshness of winter and starvation to contend with, and looked, how it tasted, how it felt. . . the awesome beauty of black spruce in flittering snow I hope you don’t mind a long and winding letter. I’m and frozen air ... so I started playing with it, sending feeling melancholy today, the kind of day when I notice poems out under the name Casey Wolf. I didn’t like the the raindrop hit the yard light and the spray of steam way it scanned, but I started having dreams. I was a wolf, rise off it, then curl away in the breeze, the kind of day running, my chest narrow and deep instead of broad when I am glad and sad all at once that I forced myself and flat, so that air passed into me easily and sustained to stay in and stop running around trying to catch up me. For the first time in my life I felt safe enough, strong on life. Glad because I need it, and I need to feel my enough, able to really breathe. I gave in. I felt like a insides. Sad because my insides are filled with that. dweeb for the longest time (people will know I changed my I’ve always dreamt of houses. Old houses patterned name!) but I grow into the name more every day. My new on the great old brick house we rented from the nuns birthday (I have two a year now) is December 23. I’ll be when I was six, and in which I lost what little remained one this year. I’ll also be thirty-eight, on 25Junc, which of my childhood. When I wander through these houses is where I got my middle name. It took ages to find a I am always searching for something, trying to find all third name I could be happy with, and I got it when I the old rooms and look into them or trying to move in, read about an African custom of naming children after take possession somehow. Because when I was violated the month they were born in. (Lucky I wasn’t a Scorpio.) I had to leave these rooms empty. I had to lose the key When I said it out, it contained a secret pun I rather and lose the address and wander without family or past. liked. Caseyjune Wolf. Most wolves are born in May. I When I thinkof this lookingat mychildhoodshame and tell myself I’m a June wolf — someone who got off to a torture, I see beyond that dying curtain an ancient pane late start on life. I have to spend most of my energy, I of glass. There is so much dirt and cobweb on it I still finally recognised, into putting me back together again can’t sec, except vague outlines and colours. Most im­ after the way I came into this world. It's been a real portantly there is light. The parts of me that survived to handicap, but I’m coming along. I’m finding my wolf­ adulthood have seen light and colour, have walked legs, learning how to live, and slowly gathering my pack. freely in beautiful places from Cape Breton Island to Kakadu, NT, but the prisoners behind (hose walls, the 11 November, early afternoon: occupants of those apparently empty rooms, have never As I sat on my bed this grey morning reading the last seen light, have never felt hope, have never believed bits of TMRI heard, so faintly that I wasn’t even sure if they would be remembered and freed by the rest of me. they were real, the strains of a familiar song played on Even as I’ve struggled years to come out of this painful a bagpipe. I called my mother and sang her the tunc, place I’ve tried to control who would emerge and what and she gave me these words: ‘The minstrel boy he has would be true and what our agreed reality would be, just gone to war, In the ranks of death you’ll find him. His as it was controlled for me as a child by the adults around father’s sword he has girded on, and his great harp slung me. behind him.’ (I’ve paraphrased. I wonder if it’s an Irish When you forget betrayal, overwhelming pain, un­ tune. I’d have thought a Scot would have carried war controllable terror, you forget freedom of movement, pipes.) It was a quiet, old-feeling moment, where I innocent joy, the sense of belonging in this world. I wasn’t here anymore but back over thirty years in forgot how to dance. I could move my body but it Winnipeg in a world defined by my parents’ feelings and couldn’tjust whirl safely on its own. My head had to say, opinions and information about the world, where my okay, now try this. Then my body would try to do it. own were still very much in question. I felt the sadness Often I'd lose my balance because my balance wasn’t

65 ■

there. It was far away. Back in the closet where I sat with was looking up from a carriage, and the world was eyes closed and breath held and tried to believe it all stunning in its autumn shades, in its late afternoon away. glamour, and I thought, ‘She took me for walks.' It came I forgot how to trust, even myself, how to feel all of as a revelation, much like the revelations of abuse. But me, how to forget fear for a moment and fly. But I didn’t unlike them, and like the one early memory of being lose everything. I knew the sense of flying from my held by my dad, it was as though some sweet, huge, dreams — at rare moments — singing or writing or unexpected hand had stretched toward me cupping life, doing something brave or letting my feelings pour out. and poured some on me. ’Here’, it said, ‘this is good. I could recognise the ability to fly in others and it There was good in your life. You can remember that, pierced my soul. I could see the colours of the sky and too.’ be in awe of them. I could make straw dolls out of I could have knelt right down and . . . those child­ sentences and follow the interconnections of suppos­ hood images are weaving in and out all over the place. edly unrelated thoughts. I could form thoughts new to I see a saint, or Mary perhaps, kneeling in medieval me. I could step back from fear enough to feel how huge robes with streams of light flowing out from her eyes love is, and I never — despite all my despair and the toward the ground, wide, curling streams that fan out demon-thoughts telling me to turn back, despite the and bring her tears up to the heavens. Or arc they tears almost complete lack of understanding in even those entirely? Streams of some dazzling power she has con­ who cared and tried to help and often stepped on me nected with in herself, in response to witnessing a mir­ in the process — I never completely gave up. Part of me acle. They are emotion; joy may be the best word, always hoped, through massive self-blame and misun­ because in my experience it encompasses pain and the derstanding, through a belief that I had to hide who I release of pain, the knowledge that even if pain is not really was (which, sadly, in many ways was true), through over, it is small, small in comparison to the miracle at early efforts to obliterate my self in order to end the hand. I could probably beat this idea to the ground for pain. Just like the nightmares where I could not kill the readers, especially those who don't know what I am evil thing. I could stop it, flatten it, crush it, but there it talking about, but there was something that the Catho­ would still be, tiny and living, indestructible. And a lics recognised, though they mislabelled it, in my opin­ malicious hand would reach across and tear the skin ion, that we are overlooking to our peril in this world. back from my face to reveal to my horror . . . open sky. There is a miracle in action here, and it isn’t just the The thing that wouldn’t die was me. My will to live. The tempered awe of science (which is one of my greatest huge welcoming of self and nature that Mae Strelkov highs). It is our direct involvement in that flood of living, expresses in her letters to you. When I take the iron foot of being, because life itself is not the central issue, and I off the tortured, furious self, it begins not only to show certainly am no less overwhelmed by my relationship to me agony, and where it comes from, and who betrayed the rock and the process that shaped it than to the eel me and why. It shows me where we went right, where and the hickory. I am in this miracle, and it is sweeping they loved me, where I am burgeoning, and real, where me. The greatest gift I ever receive is when I feel that I did well and felt wonder and the joy of being alive in connection again, when I remember and know every spite of everything. element of my life, when I Anou/that they hurt me and Even the prisoners stretch toward the filtered light. how they hurt me, that my experience of it is all valid Even the mangled and seemingly dead begin to drag and all worthy of expression, that there is much more themselves off the floor and go to the window for a peek. to it than how it was for me, that their lives and the lives Life. Life. It’s all that matters. Now I am just driven by around them and rippling back through living history mitochondrial DNA. Maybe it’s all just a chemical plot all had their story and it is all real and valid and ... I’m to keep those helixes spinning into eternity. But damn not expressing this very well, damn it. it’s powerful, to keep dragging me back to life, impossi­ One thing doesn’t cancel out the other. I am angry ble as it seemed. To follow that tiny flame through an and I’m not. I do love them and I don’t. I am part of eternity of darkness on the hunch — the little hunch, them and I am my self, unrelated. I am this human and so small I wasn’t sure it was real — that it could really I am that rock. How can I explain? Even in beginning I bum. lose my train of thought. It’s like too many trains whiz­ Yesterday I left the therapist’s office and I went for a zing in and out of the station all at once, which tells me coffee and had my teeth polished and cleaned and read I am jumping away from a thought that scared me, and 'What To Say to a Naked Man’ in a woman’s magazine. throwing myself off the track. (‘Wowl Tliis is my lucky day!’ was one of the recommen­ Thai’s okay. I don’t have to have it all sorted out to dations. They omitted, 'Get out of here now or I’m be allowed to communicate this little with you. I hope calling the police.’) Then I hopped on Artemis (my you don’t perceive it as a waste of your time. Maybe I bike) and spun home. On the way I passed a park with should just keep it to myself. the trees lit from the side by the descending sun. Some­ I enjoyed a lol that I read in this issue. The writing thing barked inside me as I caught sight of one particu­ about Roger, whom of course I didn’t know. Dave Lang­ lar mossy elm. Following that self I am learning not to ford’s column, especially the hilarious bits about crime ignore, I made myself turn back and look at it. (This is fiction. ‘Yes, I Want to be a Paperback Writer’ (good go, the thing I kept thinking to tell you.) When I stood there Lyn). And, obviously, ‘In Cahoots with the Creator’, looking at this non-native tree — a big, mossy, gnarly which I found puzzling, inspiring, and wonderful. elm unlike anything you normally see around here — I Thanks again for bringing them to me. was filled with pleasure from another time. I realised I (11 November 1994)

66 (From P»ge 4) All that’s yet unsung: Farewells

ness and a voluminous knowledge of literature, especially Australian and Irish. I was a gawky, BRUCE GILLESPIE timid student who would like to have read every­ thing, but had only just started. Dinny appreci­ farewells ated people who loved books. Dinny became ‘Subdean of Arts’, a position Dinny O’Hearn that was (according to rumour) created to keep Jim Hamilton him out of the way. I’ve never found out why he had to be kept out of the way, or why he was Marie Maclean contented with his peculiar position in the uni­ versity. The position of ‘Subdean’ disappeared Esta Handfield when he became administrator of the Australia Centre during his last years before retiring. Being Philip Hodgins Subdean gave him a great ability to help students, and plenty of free time for boozing with the literary folk of Carlton. Dinny’s gatherings at various Carlton pubs became famous. People who knew It seems typical Gillespie to say it. but the 'high­ him only by reputation must have wondered what lights' of the last two years — the events particu­ else he did. larly remembered — are the deaths of people who Dinny O'Heam wrote superbly about litera­ mean a lot to me. ture, but there is still no collection of his reviews and articles. Dinny always said that he would write a ‘real book’ when he retired. He took early Dinny O'Heam: retirement, and a few months later was diagnosed Close friend to thousands with leukaemia. He was already co-host of The Book Show on SBS Television, and continued in that position until a week before he died. DINNY O’HEARN took a year to extinguish. Many Memorials to Dinny sire scattered around Mel­ of his friends must have wondered that he took bourne. They are people like me who owe him a so short a time. We heard that he was ill with great deal: not only for his conversations about leukaemia about the time that we learned that books in 1966, but the great help he gave Nor­ Roger Weddall was seriously ill. Dinny survived strilia Press. He was chuffed that one of his former Roger by seven months. students was a partner in an Australian publish­ It was said of Dinny when he died that he was ing house, no matter how small it might be. Too one of those people whose close friends could be bad that Dinny didn’t like science fiction, but he numbered in their thousands. I was never a close liked George Turner's In the Heart or in the Head. friend, but he remembered me as one of his former He wrote a letter of appreciation that enabled students when I met him in early 1978 at an Norstrilia Press to gain one of the few non-fiction Australia Day booze-up in the Dandenong Australia Council publishing grants awarded in Ranges. (It was the coldest January day on record, 1984. Dinny had vague plans of reviving George’s and it was only luck that got Gerald Mumane and reputation inside Australia. These plans came to me back to Collingwood that night.) Even at my nothing, but George has showed an ability to loosest, I was much too sober for Dinny. extend his own reputation outside Australia. I first met Dinny in 1966. He was my tutor for I was never invited to one of Dinny's famous St English II. I seemed to be the only student who Patrick’s Day at-homes. As I say, I was never talked back to him. Dinny and I spent the whole considered boozy enough. But he was a person year in a conversation for two during those tuto­ who lit up a certain part of my life, and I feel it’s rials. unfair that he did not have those years of retire­ Our backgrounds were dissimilar. The rumour ment to write the book he should have written. around the university had it that Dinny was a The only written memorial for him is Books, Death ‘failed priest’, although I could never understand and Taxes (Penguin 0-14-024636-3; 1995; why he attempted to become one. By the time I A$14.95), a thin book of Australian stories that met him, Dinny described himself as a ‘married he selected before he died. Most of the very short man from the suburbs'. Dinny had Irish cheerful-

67 stories are uninteresting, but in it Andrea Stret­ Marie Maclean: ton, his co-host on The Book Show, writes a wonderful obituary that summarises all the exas­ ‘Joys as things close in on me’ peration, as well as delight, that he gave to his closest friends: I didn’t know MARIE MACLEAN well at all. I met ‘It is more than two years since then, and the her only two or three times, at Nova Mob meetings good thing about time passing is that the memory in the early 1980s at the home of John Foyster of that frail, suffering, courageous person is now and Jenny Bryce. I knew she was an academic at eclipsed by the vision of the delightful, pugna­ Monash University, but did not realise until re­ cious, full-blooded man Dinny really was. Dinny cently that she was a member of the Department in the bloom of health, red-faced and sweating, of French. She wrote articles about science fic­ scooting along with his rugged terrier walk (faster tion, and confessed at a Nova Mob that she had if he was heading to Percy's), blue shirt gaping to convert an article from the English language to over a bulging stomach, the unlikely silver neck academese in order to have it published in chain and copper bracelet, spectacles held Science-Fiction Studies. together with safety pins, threadbare tweed cap I suppose she was only in her early fifties when from Donegal, blue eyes blazing, drink on the bar, she died, but she had a cheerfulness and gift for fag in the mouth, the inevitable bag of books. living that rather escapes me. In late 1993 she Dinny spreading warmth, making crude, in­ wrote to me: correct jokes, dishing out opinions, sparring affectionately with Kim [his partner). Holding court in the Kingdom of Carlton.’ (p. 12) MARIE MACLEAN 16 Wattle Valley Road Canterbury Victoria 3126 Jim Hamilton The reason you haven’t heard from me is that I’ve been and his wonderful Newsletter fighting cancer for nearly two years. Things are not going well, and I think very regretfully I’ll have to give I had the usual short, pleasant note from JIM up SF Commentary. Thank you for all the pleasure and HAMILTON shortly before he died in 1993. As the instruction you've given me and please accept the en­ person who ran the Victorian Fellowship of Aus­ closed as a small contribution to neglected dues. tralian Writers for many years, he gave me and With good wishes to all friends in SF. my enterprises a remarkable amount of help, Yours ever, Marie Maclean. although he had no interest in science fiction. He (8 November 1993) would do anything to help small publishers. An advertisement in tiny type in his FAW Newsletter Marie’s last letter, sent a few months before she would bring more response than a mention any­ died, appears on the opposite page. where else. Jim didn’t radiate personal warmth, except, I imagine, to people he had known a long time. He Esta Handfield: was a bookish man, like me, and we were equally All I know about a packed life shy in the other’s company. I might have got to know him if I had attended meetings of the Fel­ lowship of Australian Writers, but I didn't. I would never have met ESTA HANDFIELD if I No doubt Jim had achieved much before he had not known Carey Handfield for 26 years, but became the secretary of the Victorian Fellowship that does not reduce the real sense of loss I felt of Australian Writers, but that became his par­ when she died suddenly in late June this year. ticular achievement. Each issue of the Newsletter When I met Esta and John, Carey's parents, was packed with vast amounts of information they were already winding up the public relations useful to writers. Jim never bothered with luxu­ firm that occupied their time during the 1960s ries like layout; he didn’t need to. Any advertise­ and early 1970s. She and John ‘retired’ to an ment I ever placed in it met with response, existence that was still hectic: managing the sometimes quite a lot. Most of the people who Chinese Noodle Shop in South Melbourne and attended the 1975 Writers’ Workshop, now other enterprises, and taking part in writing and known as the Le Guin Workshop, wrote to me theatre projects. What I didn’t know was that Esta had been because of the advertisements in Jim's News­ involved in such activities all her life. In the early letter. Over the years, quite a few SFC subscrip­ 1950s she was associated with the people who set tions were also the result of them. up the artists’ colony at Monsalvat in Eltham: she Vale Jim. I didn’t know you, really, but you lit was always interested in art and writing. It seems up a part of my life. that she and John had moved to Eltham because of their connections with Monsalvat. I never heard much of this from Carey. During

68 16 Wattle Valley Road Canterbury 3126 Australia Tel/Fax 61 3 8368172 e-mail inacleanm®alphal . cc . mon ash .edu.au r

Thank you with all my heart for your letter, its warmth and commonsense. I didn’t reply then as I was just going in for a fourth operation. It seemed to have succeeded, but after a couple of months, the damn thing was back, this time in the lungs and inoperable. I've only got a few months now, but I want to tell you how important your advice to talk and share is. Thank you too, for the Roger memorial issueissue,, it really helps to read people's fond memories.

Unlike Roger,Roger, I've discussed it all openly with friends and family, and,and , this may seem crazy, after all we all say we want a quick end, but my three years' dying has given me a chance to hear and tell things to friends and family which we might otherwise have put off till it was too late, I don't mind if you publish this because it may help other friends dying of cancer and AIDS, and god knows there are enough of them.

In that time II've ' ve finished and published a new bookbook,. icalled The Name of the Mother: Sri ting Illegitimacy, which also became a sort of testament. To my great joy, among appreciations coming in, was a two page letter of praise from Derrida himself. I just can't resist telling you, because it gave me such a boost. I’ve .also kept up my supervisions, and I think I'll have five theses to mark my last five months one of them on Philip. K. Dick, so you see the old loyalties are still there. Add to that a new grandson and two new honorary grandsons!

One of my great joys as things close in on me and I can't get out much is the internet. I belong to a half a dozen bulletin boards, and it's wonderful. out there. I'm not young or old, sick or well, pretty or plain, I'm just me, or rather a different me on each list. It's a whole new existence, where I can say anything I like and make terrific new friends. Again, if anyone who reads this is going through the same thing, look for these openings.

On the net I met Andy Butler, who suggested I send any Australian material to Andy Sawyer for his SF archives, So I sent him all my Metaphysical Reviews, only to realise, when I opened this one, that it was coals to Newcastle!

Must stop now, greetings to old friends out there and especially to you both for saying just the things I needed to hear.

Is

69

I the heyday of Norstrilia Press. Elaine and I visited important experiences of the last 20 years. Here the Handfields' house in Eltham. and enjoyed was poetry that was completely accessible, yet their company greatly. She became impatient serious and complex. The poems about facing with Norstrilia Press’s flatfooted attempts to pub­ death were those I read first. In The Passenger’, licise our books, and organised a wonderful book death is bom: launching for Dreamworks. Staged at the Planet­ arium, it included a theatrical presentation of I feel it several of the stories from the book. in my marrow — Esta’s plans to become a writer during her lurching and kicking . . . retirement met with only partial success. Several Its birth will bring me to a corpse of her plays have been staged by amateur groups, and for a week or so and therefore might eventually be discovered by my hair will grow larger companies. She tried several times to place and fingernails will still slide out. plays with ABC Radio. To judge from the testi­ monials given during the celebration of her life at At that stage, Philip's only fear was: 'My bad Monsalvat Great Hall on 3 July, her main contri­ luck is to write the same poem every time.’ bution to writing has been her encouragement of But even in Blood and Bone there were signs other writers. of another Philip Hodgins. His poems about living The last time I saw Esta was at the wedding of in the Victorian countryside had a thickness and Carey and Jo in the late eighties. It seems only a immediacy of detail that showed that he was in few months ago that Carey and Jo had told us love with life, not death. Not that his view of life that Esta was feeling ill. A few weeks later she was was in any way sentimental. Of The Dam’: diagnosed as having inoperable cancer. And only a week or two later Carey rang to say that his In summer it’s popular with the herd mother had died. According to John, Esta was still who muck it up by floating green cow pats organising things on her last day. She was one of and come out caked, with leeches on their those people who represent the relentless creativ­ teats. ity of life itself — she knew you have to go, but In winter it’s the spot for shooting birds. she packed her life until its last minute. Two ibises stand on the rim like taps.

That last line was the best in the book. If only Philip Hodgins: the man could stay alive to write some more The poet who gave me Poetry poetry! Philip did. A few years later I met him in an Abbotsford street. He was going for his daily walk. During late 1984, soon after I began to work at A new collection was about to appear. It was Down the Macmillan office in South Melbourne, Alex the Lake with Half a Chook. More than few people Skovron and I were talking about books. The consider this the best title of an Australian poetry author I knew as Thomas M. Disch the science collection. fiction writer was the same author that Alex knew Philip’s poetry was important not only for its as Tom Disch the poet. It turned out that Alex also own sake but because it propelled me into reading wrote poetry (and has since had published two poetry in general. I had grown up with the usual highly praised volumes of poetry). 'By the way.' Australian prejudice against poetry: most poems said Alex, 'did you know that there's another poet were incomprehensible and most poets were up in the building? I must Introduce you to Philip themselves. Philip Hodgins was not only compre­ Hodgins.' hensible, but he had no time for the pretensions Alex did introduce us, but PHILIP HODGINS of ’being a poet’. In both respects he resembled and I had little to say to each other. Philip was a Philip Larkin, the English poet whom I discovered charming, polite young man with whom I might at the same time. Soon I found plenty of other have conversed if I had known anything about congenial poets, including Australia’s Andrew him, or he anything about me. Taylor and Alex Skovron. Later Alex told me Philip's story. In 1983, at During the late eighties and early nineties the age of twenty-four, Philip was diagnosed as Philip's condition was in remission, and he made having chronic myeloid leukaemia. He was given the best of it. He returned to Maryborough, where six months to live. He had been a travelling he had grown up. Death faded in his poems. The salesman for Macmillan, but moved to a desk job. bitter variety of the Australian countryside be­ A few months later, he left that job. He had always came his main subject. In Philip’s hands, the been interested in poetry, but had not enough subject seemed to be captured for the first time. time to write it seriously. Faced by death, he wrote Of‘Dirt Roads': a set of major poems that were collected as Blood and Bone. Most of us expected that to be his only The good thing about dirt roads is the way collection. they change . . . Reading Blood and Bone is one of my most unlike the indifference of bitumen

70 dirt roads keep a transitory record formed a Henryjames Appreciation Society — I have for the interest of anyone on foot not been invited! (late September 1994) i.e. the fluent script where a snake flowed across I failed to answer this letter. Alex told me late last or the continuous tangled lines year that Philip had serious renewed health prob­ of a pushbike going home. lems. A bone marrow replacement operation had A sealed road might be more consistent failed to arrest the spread of the leukaemia. Even but a dirt one is more eventful. so. it was a shock to read in The Age, 15 July 1995 that Two months ago, poet Philip Hodgins was Philip’s life became more and more eventful. He given a month to live’. After twelve extra years, married Janet Shaw, and they had two children. now he had a month to live! I sent him a card, a He kept winning prizes and gaining Australia farewell card, saying how much his work had Council grants. Two more books of poetry ap­ meant to me. peared, Animal Warmth and Up On All Fours. Imagine my feelings when I actually received a When I saw Philip at the Melbourne Writers reply. It seemed like a greeting from the grave: Festival in 1993, he looked very well. Up On All Fours received the highest praise of any of his books. It contained only a few poems about death. Thanks very much indeed for your card, which arrived In ‘The New Floor' he writes his credo. If I could today with all its kind comments — don’t really know write like this, it would be mine as well: what to say except Thank You. Your enthusiasm for Larkin is one I share. By coinci­ . . . the pleasure of knowing how things work dence I have just had a binge of him. re-reading his and a reminder of the ordinary details Collected Poems plus several of his published interviews, involved. which are hilarious in their own dour way but also full For instance, the simplicity of your tools: . . . of much insight and common sense. He is a great poet No amount of big technology could make — so clear, honest, skilful and distinctive. But of course the finished floor more level than these can. you know all this already. It’s as good as that other thing, poetry. (21 July 1995) With love the lines fit into logics of their own: the first of redgum stumps, then tin caps, Philip lasted another four weeks. Alter he died. bearers, Peter Goldsworthy wrote in The Age. 26 August joists, and finally the bare pine boards. 1995: They lie there at the end of low-tech work, ’I visited him for the last time in late May. at tongue in groove and side by side as tight his home near ^Maryborough. At that time he had as lines from Dante's faithfully measured been given a month to live. He had decided to book: discontinue chemotherapy because he wanted an understanding to keep the years together. his last weeks to be free of suffering, unclouded by the constant nausea induced by chemo­ ‘Bare pine boards ... an understanding to therapeutic drugs. Outwardly he showed his keep the years together.’ What better description usual stoicism and not an ounce of self-pity. Very of fine writing could one find? few of us can face death without personal hope — I reviewed Up On All Fours for The Melburnian but Philip's hopes were for his wife and daughters. and later for The Metaphysical Review, and ex­ ‘He read this obituary during his last weeks. changed a few letters with Philip: His comment, “an obituary to die for", is surely one of the great lines of gallows humour and PHILIP HODGINS another measure of the stoicism of the man. RMB 2138 ‘His poetry is full of such lines. His conscious­ ness will live on, in small measure, wherever that Maryborough poetry is read. We, his friends, and those who Victoria 3465 loved him can talk with him again, or at least listen to his voice, whenever we wish in those Thanks very much indeed for the MR I was interested lines.’ to read your list of reading highlights for the last year, and found myself agreeing with your comments about these two poets: JW and AT. Apart from journals and things like that I’ve read very little of late as my health is all over the place at present. The last book I read was a couple of months ago: The Aspern Papers. I quite enjoyed its evocation of Venice but I do harbour some reservations about old Henryjames. His style is a bit too embellished for my taste. I tend to like plain prose styles although I do make an exception for Gibbon and some others. Some friends of mine have

71 mother’s maiden name), which gives you some idea of how he was equally unclued-up about me. It was like Farewell, mother talking to a Dalek. A totally unemotional voice. No offer of sympathy or anything like that. He wanted to know my mother’s funeral plans — did she want to be buried or cremated, etc. I said I had no idea, as the subject had never come up between us. My mother and I were very JOHN BROSNAN similar in personality, and worrying about our funeral Flat 2, 6 Lower Road arrangements didn’t figure highly with either of us. I Harrow Middlesex HA2 ODA may worry about dying, as I’m sure my mother did, but England I couldn’t give a toss about what happens to my remains after I’m dead (though I do carry, sometimes, a kidney 19 August 1991: donor card). I suggested that maybe she had expressed Your timing is impeccable: Metaphysical Review her wishes about this matter in her will, if she’d made 15/16/17, seemingly chocablock with people reminisc­ one (I haven’t) and the Dalek told inc that his sister, ing about the deaths of their fathers, arrives when I am who lives in Sydney, was trying to gain access to my still reeling from the emotional ‘shock’ of my mother’s mother’s flat but there was some difficulty in doing that. sudden death just over a month ago. And that was that. I never heard again from him. The One of the most distressing aspects of the whole following day I received a letter from my 79-year-old thing was the way I got the news. My mother rang me father (who’d been separated from my mother for over only a few days before she died to tell me that she had 40years). He’d been informed of my mother’s death been diagnosed by her doctor as suffering from a duo­ and told me she had died of a heart attack in St Vincent’s denal ulcer after suffering from chest pains. She’d been Hospital on the Sunday afternoon. under the impression she was having a heart attack but no, according to her doctor, it was an ulcer. And she did 22 October 1991: say that the pains had gone once she’d started taking Time has passed since I wrote the above. I didn’t really the tablets he’d prescribed. She was due to have an x-ray have the heart to continue, and I don’t really have the that Friday, and I told her I’d call her on the following heart now, but I suppose I must put it down in words. Monday to find out how she was. I phoned her flat on the Monday morning — no answer. Same thing on 3 May 1993: Tuesday. I got worried. I presumed that her ulcer con­ But, as you can see, I never did. I was clearly in a very dition has worsened and she was in hospital, but as 1 depressed state, not to mention a state of shock, which didn’t have an emergency phone number for her there lasted well into 1992. Which explains why you haven’t was no one in Sydney that I could call (all the relatives heard from me for some time. I just didn’t want to live in Western Australia) to find out. complete the above account, and I won’t, except to say The only thing I could do was phone where she that my relatives on my mother’s side, under the influ­ worked, which was at Reader’s Digest. But as I remarked ence of her odious brother, Ray, behaved in a pretty to a friend at my drinking club on the Wednesday disgusting manner. I never heard another word from evening I was dreading ringing the Digest and be told them after the above phone call. They never even sent by the receptionist that my mother had died. The friend me details of the funeral so I was unrepresented at the told me not to be such a pessimist So I went home, event — I couldn’t even send flowers. I only learnt the taking the precaution of taking a bottle of wine from the full story much later from relatives on my father’s side club, waited until after midnight and then rang the of the family, who behaved extremely well, which is Digest, figuring it must be after either 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. rather ironic for reasons too depressing to go into. in Sydney. After several tries a receptionist finally did Then, horrified that my mother had died in debt and answer and I told her I was trying to get in touch with sans will, my odious uncle began bothering my ailing Mrs Joan Brosnan. There was a pause and then she said, 79-year-old father for half of the funeral costs. There’s 'I’m afraid we have some sad news about Joan — she a lot more — all of it nasty — but I’ll leave it at that. died during the weekend.’ I said ‘Thank you’ and hung (3 May 1995) up the phone. Then I rapidly drank the rest of the wine and passed out. This is so much worse a situation than any I can Of course, it didn’t really hit me until the following imagine myself going through that I’m left with little morning and I was in a pretty bad state during both to say. I suppose it’s fortunate that you were able to Thursday and Friday (and really excessive drinking keep in contact with your mother in years since didn’t help). I hadn’t seen my mother in person since 1974 . . . but it must be hard to know that she was 1974 (remember I stayed at your place before heading given a wrong diagnosis and nothing done to help the situation while you were on the other side of the onto Sydney to visit her?) but we kept in close touch by world. Thanks very much for sharing this story, letter and regular phone calls. On the Thursday I re­ John. •# ceived the one and, so far, only phone call from a relative on my mother’s side of the family. It was my It’s a grey and miserable Sunday afternoon, I’m hung cousin Valerie’s husband. All I know about him is that over, I’ve got a cold, I should be writing a letter to my he’s Chinese and a physicist. I don’t even know his slowly dying father but I really can’t face that little task, name. He asked me if I was John Orton (Orton is my so I’m answering your letter of 7 July instead, and also

72 thanking you for The Metaphysical Review 19/20/21. The of it in Wisbech with Dad and my sisters and returned appreciation of Roger Weddall, who I never met, seems the week after for the funeral, when I stayed on for a few to be part of a depressing trend in fanzines these days more days. It was the first time this particular combina­ — some time after receiving your magazine I received tion of family members had been in the same place a copy of Ted White and Dan Steffan’s Blat!, which together for years. contained a couple of moving pieces, one by her ex-hus­ The worst part — but in some ways the best part as it band, Grant Canfield, about another recently deceased helped me to grieve properly—was sorting out personal fan, Catherine Jackson, again someone I’d never per­ belongings. Mum was a hoarder, but there was stuff sonally encountered, though after reading both maga­ (includingstuff of mine) which I never knew she'd kept. zines I felt I’d received a strong impression of both Pride of place at the moment is my first (and, let’s be people. honest, only completed) novel — all four pages of it, But Canfield’s piece about his ex-wife was particu­ written I'd guess shortly after listening to Journey Into larly depressing, being not only a description of the Space, which would it make the age of eight or nine. young Catherine but of the break-up of their marriage Naturally, it’s sf. . . and the fact that despite all the years since then he'd (30 January 1995) never really got over it. Even sadder, after seeing Can­ field’s idealised sketches of the young Catherine, was to encounter a photograph of her taken at a con last year JEANE MEALY and to sec a dumpy, white-haired woman. The two 766 Laurel Avenue images did not equate at all. Getting old, as my late St Paul mother used to constantly tell me, is no fun at all. Minnesota 55104 And on the same theme: I endured my forty-seventh USA birthday a short time ago and am bracing myself for the big 50, if I last that long. Earlier this year I was diagnosed as having high blood pressure and high cholesterol: a walking disaster area waiting to happen. Medication has [In SFC 15/16/17] Lee Hoffman’s description of her brought the blood pressure down, but I doubt if the father’s gradual decline and the tending she gave him cholesterol level has changed. I’ve cut down on dairy was powerful and heartbreaking. I’ll be interested to see if anyone in the medical field comments on the profes­ products, but seeing as I continue to drink gallons of sional care he got. ‘Despite all my calls and attempts to red wine I don't think it makes much difference. get help, no one had recognised what was happening.’ (16 October 1994) We saw a lot of this at the Vz\ Hospital with Lee Pelton, I’m getting so ancient that I rarely drink red wine who died of AIDS complications last December. It was these days. 1 have a bit when I'm eating out at some maddening. A lot of fans will be facing the facts of decent restaurant, such as Abla's, and on the rare assisting ageing parents. Are we ready? I’m not. John, occasions when we have people to dinner. But my SO (significant other) and I had to deal with this in otherwise, these days drinking wine is a 1992 when his elderly mother was diagnosed with pan­ drag-me-down, not a pick-me-up. I had normal blood creatic cancer. While John took the main responsibility, pressure and cholesterol levels when last they were I did visit. The worst part came when she went into a measured, and I've lost quite a few kilograms since health-care facility but didn’t understand she wasn’t then. going to leave. (There is no cure, though younger people can sometimes hold out for awhile.) Keeping a ANDY SAWYER death watch is pretty grim whether the person is con­ 1 The Flaxyard scious or not. Many times we stood near by and told her Woodfall Lane and Lee, last year, they were loved and would be remem­ Little Neston bered and were free to go when they wanted. They both South Wirral L64 4BT hung on tenaciously, spending time with visitors as they England could, sleeping when they needed to, trying to tolerate care given by the staff (it was hard to bear the moans of 1 was reminded of Australia recently by someone com­ pain). I can’t imagine working in a place like that. ing up to me at a conference and telling that Marie I can understand why it tookjohn Bangsund time to Maclean, who had been regularly sending me parcels of write about his father's death, too. I’m glad the under­ fanzines, had recently died. However, I never got taker set John’s fears at rest about whether he should around to writing, and then just after Christmas (on have tried mouth-to-mouth respiration. Guilt is such a 2 January) my mother died, which meant that anything heavy, damaging emotion. The dream about his father bar essential work was out for a while. being disappointed with heaven sounds like he was still Fortunately, my father and one of my sisters were feeling guilty. It takes awhile to work things out fully. I with her at the lime; it was sudden (a heart attack), and hope he’s had a better dream by now. we had been there the week before for our annual (15June 1995) post-Christmas visit. My other sister had been up for my dad’s birthday the week before Christmas, and had spoken to her on the phone just the night before. I was meant to be having the week off anyway, so I spent most

73

I firmed these times later. As far as a time like that goes, it was a blessed event. The funeral was conducted by a friend who had taken up a pastorate at Tea Tree Gully Memories of my father a year or so earlier. Mum took it very well, with our support. She has continued on at home, with her circle of friends. (Christinas 1993) PAUL ANDERSON 17 Baker Street -X- I stayed with Paul and his parents during two of my Grange visits to Adelaide — 1972 and 1976 — and therefore I South Australia 5022 share something of Paul's loss. His parents resembled mine in quite a few ways, and were valued hosts. My I read TMR 15/16/17, with its feature letter from Lee parents grew older, and so did Paul's; my father died in 1989. and Paul's in 1992; the inevitability of the Hoffman and the weird dream recounted byJohn Bang- process doesn't make it easier to understand or or sund, with interest at the time, then later I was able to come to terms with. Thanks for the letter. Paul. contrast it with my own experience. My father died on 2 January' 1992. It was a very distressing time for my mother, as they were close, and his gradual failing with cancer — caused by his smoking for many years up to his retirement — and mental failings made him a difficult patient to live with. My father was diagnosed with cancer and was treated More memories of with a course of tablets and other things. This put it into Roger Weddall remission for a time, but affected him drastically in other ways. After a spell in hospital to fix a blood clot in his leg he went steadily downhill. He was not in pain, but his MAE STRELKOV attitude towards taking his many pills was not the best. 4501 Palma Sola Mum rang me regularly for stress relief. While this was Jujuy going on I was steadily reminded of all the things that I knew I would regret not doing if I were too late. We have Argentina all head of people who missed the chance to say the important things to their parents. I am immensely grate­ What an extraordinary evocation of past clays in fan­ ful for the way in which I was able to say farewell. dom’s domain. More than slightly sad and poignant. At As soon as Michael, our son, was mobile, he made this great distance. I’ve been very very fond of Roger sure that he gained the absolute maximum attention Weddall (and his wry humour in zines; and, besides, he from his grandfather, who by then was al his most always sent me most the most tasteful Christmas cards). withdrawn. Michael would run straight past, dodge I liked thinking of Australian fandom that contained so around or otherwise totally ignore my mother on his way many great people, and since the early days of John to my father. Alderson’s Chao, I’d felt like Australia was a second New Year’s Day 1992 was a crisis time. That night home (speaking spiritually). things were not at all good. In the morning Mum rang Here we all were, stranded alike under the Southern while I was having breakfast. She was very upset. Dad Cross, which pre-Columbian natives used to view as a had had a stroke that morning and was having difficulty Rhea ostrich-like bird. It kind of pleased me, this little- moving. The ambulance was coming to take him to known fact, for drivelly nonsense about ‘living under Casualty at Flinders Medical Centre. the Southern Cross’ that one sometimes encounters, I made a red light drive down there. At first I took annoys me. the normal route to my parents’ home, but changed my As I read through Yvonne Rousseau’s ‘The Garden mind, and at the last minute went the alternate way up Party’, I’d at first failed to note that it occurred in 1992. Shepherd Hill Road. I passed an ambulance. I figured Somehow, I fancied it had happened this very year, and that it was for my father, and followed it to Flinders. it was a shock to find Roger appearing so frequently in Once there, I walked into Casually. Dad seemed to the story. (‘Are they not letting him be gone? Calling recognise me, but he was having difficulty speaking. The him back in this way so that like a ghost he’s present doctor on duty took Mum and I to a side room and told there amid all his friends, still?’) us that he was likely to be paralysed, and would have But then I checked and realised I was wrong about great difficulty in speaking, if at all. When we returned the year. Perhaps you, Bruce, are to blame for my having to Dad, he appeared to have another stroke, and been deceived as to ‘time’. You wrote in The Last Magi­ attempted to sit up. I helped him sit, and then he died. cian about friends that ‘disappear from sight’ and you All through that day I was conscious of someone else find yourself catching your breath with hope and dread with me bringing a strong sense of peace and love. each time you glimpse someone ‘who might be your Before I left home I had rung a friend in the church to long-lost friend’. be praying for me during the morning. It was most Reading (he Garden Parly story I had the bewitching obvious to me that they were indeed praying. I con- sensation: 'Roger’s still alive — they’ve kept his memory

74 so real that he still walks in their midst, as humorous and much money. Roger had left Amsterdam in such a state wry as ever in his quiet way’. that everything he wasn’t carrying at the time he was propositioned was left behind. See my section about my Uncle Ian in ‘I Must Be After several days of travelling alone (and, at this Talking to My Friends’. stage, Roger’s internal travels were far more important to him than where the train took him), Roger was calm MARK LONEY enough to return to Amsterdam and pick up his luggage COA: PO Box 181 from the hostel (whose owner/manager was the person Campbell ACT 2612 who had propositioned him). email:[email protected] I don’t know the particulars of what happened after that in Amsterdam, whether Roger said yes or no or if Talking a little about Roger Weddall: I’m not sure from the issue came up at all at that stage, but by the time he ‘The Lark Ascended’ (TMR 19/20/21) whether you arrived back in Melbourne he was definitely thinking suspect that there was ’some event during his 1985 about his sexual orientation. overseas trip’ or whether you know that that was the And, of course, back in Melbourne, Roger was once case. again surrounded by friends and family who had expec­ Anyway, something did happen while Roger was tations of how he would behave and what sort of person travelling in 1985, and we talked about it at length one he was. So, in some ways, he found it much more night in 1991. As Roger explained it to me, there were difficult to deal with in Melbourne than in Amsterdam two aspects to what happened. The first was Roger’s — everyone else in Melbourne already knew that he discovery that, while travelling, the people that he met wasn’t gay. and interacted with on a day-to-day basis had no expec­ 1986, of course, was when Michelle and I moved to tations of how he would behave. He talked about how, Melbourne and Roger moved into 2 Rogers Street, in ordinary life, a person's behaviour is subtly but Richmond, with us. Thinking now about some of the strongly influenced by the expectations of friends, things that he said about his 1985 trip at that time, I family and work colleagues. suspect that he came back from Europe shortly after his During the time he was overseas and, in particular, experience in Amsterdam. Perhaps he wanted to be during his long recuperation in Egypt from the car somewhere where someone, even if it wasn’t him, knew accident, Roger realised that the expectations of people who he was. in Melbourne had, to a certain extent, determined the But, quietly and privately, Roger did start to explore sort of person that he had been. (Roger and I talked his homosexuality. We didn’t see much of Roger at about this at length and ended up agreeing with each Rogers Street. He was absent for days at a time and kept other a lot — I have been fascinated for years with the the odd hours that arc described so well throughout way families interact and the undeniable fact that a lot Lhyfe Thyme, but we assumed at the time that most of it of people have mental images of their siblings or parents was due to the work schedule at his first home (not that are several years old and take no account of growth Bridge House; it was out in the Eastern Suburbs some­ or change that has occurred since they took their last where). mental snapshot.) The fact that Roger found himself Then in 1987, around Christmas if my memory is at completely immersed in the Egyptian culture for so all accurate, letters from ‘Mike’ started arriving at long, where he and Australia were foreigners, has Rogers Street as well as elsewhere in fandom. The hand­ obvious significance. writing was atrocious and the grammar was that of a Eventually Roger was well enough to continue on his poorly educated twelve-year-old, but the message was planned journey to Europe. And, once he got there, clear — Roger was a homosexual and had AIDS. The letters were vicious and cruel but, made by a self­ some interesting things happened. First, some of the proclaimed homosexual lover of Roger (who seemed, people he was meeting (the fans, obviously) had expec­ confusingly, to be strongly homophobic), they had an tations about him — not quite as constricting as the awful ring of truth to them. Roger’s response to them expectations that people in Melbourne had, but expec­ was to ignore the accusation of AIDS and admit that, tations nonetheless. And second, one night in the hostel yes, he had had a relationship with ‘Mike* and that it was that he was staying at in Amsterdam, Roger was propo­ ending badly. He implied but never said that the AIDS sitioned by another man. accusation came from the bitterness of the breakup. From what Roger said to me in 1991, that proposition Speaking personally, the realisation that Roger was came as a terrible shock to him. Even after months in a homosexual was the missing piece to much of his Egypt discovering that he wasn’t quite the person that behaviour during the time he was in Rogers Street. he and a lot of other people in Melbourne had thought Speaking for Melbourne fandom, I know that a lot of he was, Roger was still shocked to discover that his people were completely astonished (if not horrified) by response to the idea of a homosexual encounter wasn’t the news — you could almost hear the collective jaw ‘no thanks, I’m not interested’. Instead, he felt desire, hitting the ground. Speaking personally again, I was fear and longing. Most importantly, Roger felt confused astonished by the number of people who came to me, and threatened — not by the proposition but by his most of whom had been at university with Roger or response to it. known him from around that time, to confirm the So, literally, Roger caught the next train out of town. shocking news. ‘How could Roger be a homosexual?’ As I recall, he ended up in Scandinavia (Finland, I think, one asked me. ‘I was at University with him.’ but I could be wrong) without any luggage and not

75 Thus making the point that Roger and I agreed on Roger Weddall is one of many wonderful and gifted in 1991, sadly, that those we have known the longest are young people we have lost to AIDS and/or its complica­ often those we know the least well. We may know the tions. Hardly a day passes when the New York Times person from several years ago (Roger wasn’t a homo­ obituary page fails to list a gifted young person in the sexual at university) but that may not be the person we creative arts. The losses in the arts community arc be­ know now. yond measuring, but, worse, all those fine young people, (12June 1994) destroyed by this terrible disease. I have written in my fanzines of my son, who is now -X- The news that Roger had come to a decision about 39, is gay, and is preparing for the premiere at Houston his sexual orientation came as a complete surprise Grand Opera, Texas in January 1995 and then in April and was somehow unsurprising. The news confirmed at New York City Opera, Lincoln Centre, New York, of certain observations that I had made over the years, his opera (as librettist) Harvey Milk. He has already had but which 1 had chosen not to think about. In reasons for me to boast of him in the arts, but this is of particular. I could only observe that a number of women over the years had been attracted, in a course his chef d’oeuvre, his biggest piece. And such moon-eyed desperate way. to Roger, someone who venues! In 1996 it will appear in Germany and in San seemed unaware of his own attractions. Roger was a Francisco. good friend to many women, showing the kind of Last year Michael contracted some form of pneumo­ friendship that most Australian men are incapable of. nia; it lingered and he had much treatment, and my fear but one always sensed the safe distance he placed was of its being the form common to AIDS. It seemed between himself and the women who were closest to unlikely, since he and his companion are both solid and him. I always had the sense of Roger as a relaxed, dedicated to each other, with no promiscuity. Such he hovering bird, never having decided where to land. has told me, and I accept. (My rueful joke is that they When he landed, the trapper-snapper nabbed him. -X- would both have made wonderful husbands and fathers!) Happily, his problem was not that pneumonia, and finally it was entirely cleared up with no aftermath. CHRIS CHITTLEBURGH We heard Michael talk about his opera at the Centre for Flat 4, 122 Hodgkinson Street Gay and Lesbian Affairs on 13th Street a while ago, and Clifton Hill his plot line sounds very good indeed. I hope the music Victoria 3068 is great, but I promise nothing. The Centre bought a block of 350 tickets to use (the subject, I larvey Milk, was Thanks for The Metaphysical Review 19/20/21, which has of course a prominent gay politician in charge of gay inspired me to write my first-ever letter of comment. affairs in San Francisco). Michael pointed out that his The tributes to Roger Weddall brought back some ‘dad is a writer and his morn an artist, which influenced memories of my MUSFA days in the earlyish 1970s. One him, and they arc here tonight’. For which we received common thread in TMR 19/20/21 was how amazingly a hand, which was poignant, and referred to the many persuasive Roger was. He was notoriously good at Diplo­ parents who reject their children because of their sexual macy and other wheeling-and-dcaling games. preferences. My favourite memory of Roger relates to another I have been whiling away my retirement and regret­ game, Dungeons and Dragons. At Unicon II (Easter tably declining years in writing a screenplay. I am 1976), Jon Noble introduced some MUSFA people to delighted to tell you that I sold a short story! Yes, an the original version of D&D. To continue playing, we actual sale. I have plenty of essays in print, semi-pro, and needed someone to design a dungeon and act as dun­ have had a few books of commentary on sf writers, most geon master. No one had time to do this by himself, so of which for small if any bucks. But to receive an editor’s Roger and I designed the Twin Tyrant’s dungeon to­ letter for a fiction commencing ‘I am pleased etc. etc.’! gether. (This may well have been the first D&D cam­ It had to be less than 3000 words, for a Barnes and Noble paign in Victoria.) One of Roger's contributions was a book, one of a scries of 100s, this being 100 Vicious moderately nasty maze. After mapping their way to the Vampire Stones. However, it is not vicious, is hopefully centre of the maze, the party found a room covered with touching, and barely vampirical. Indeed, it has no hor­ signs in dozens of languages. Roger explained that all ror at all. It will be out this year. The book will be a the signs they could translate had the same meaning: hardcover with jacket, yet the series is priced at just $7.95 Get Lost. While I struggled to keep a straight face, Roger each. asked for a look at the players’ map, scanned it briefly, Love to Elaine — did you two get married? Kids? Why then said ‘Hmmmm. Very good’ in such a casual way the devil not? that (to my amazement) none of them suspected a thing (16 August 1994) until he crumpled the map up and threw it away. The look on their faces was wonderful. £-1 like the way LoCers lob in comment bombs as (15 July 1994) they leave the room. To us it doesn’t seem long since Elaine and I got married (March 1979), but of course it was before I started trading fanzines with Ben. I even published a BEN INDICK little fanzine (SF Commentary 55 V2) subtitled The 428 Sagamore Avenue Wedding'. If I can find a copy. I'll send it to you. Ben. Teaneck NJ 07666-2626 In all my time in fandom, no one has ever USA commented on or even (as far as I know) worried

76 about the fact that Elaine and I don’t have children. regain ‘health’, only to be forced into the indignity of a Quite a few couples in Australian fandom don't have nursing home, a fate she feared and loathed. All in all, children, presumably for the same reason we offer: I feel happy for her. And, as was not the case with my that we don’t want any. Luckily for the marriage, we agree completely on that opinion. We are father, I think we had achieved a relationship we agreed reading-and-writing people. We like peace and quiet. on and in; there weren’t any undone connections. I will We can’t stand the sound of crying babies. The world probably be working out the problems of my relation­ doesn't need any more children. Etcetera. ship with my father for a long time yet; not so with my In the end, having children and spending the next mother. twenty years bringing them up is something you do if The memorials for Roger Weddall gave a wonderful you really want to do it. To have a child for any other sense of the man and his presence in many people’s reason does a terrible disservice to the child. lives. I am reminded of bpNichol, the wonderful Cana­ To return to the beginning of your letter: dian poet who died far too young in 1988, and who was For reasons which I won't go into. I did not say beloved by all his friends across the country. Intrigu- anywhere in TMR 19/20/21 that Roger Weddall ingly, this summer I am reading widely in post-1945 suffered from AIDS. This was the assumption that many people made from what I said, and that was poetry in Britain and the US (for a course I have to teach confirmed by the advertisement for Lhyfe Thyme on this fall for the first time), and so was reading about page 3. Frank O’Hara. There was a delightful collection of Roger had been infected by the HfV virus for memoirs by various friends, which provided a sense of perhaps as long as seven years. He never developed loss and love that reminded me of how ‘we’ all reacted any of the usual symptoms of AIDS (except the to bp's death. Clearly, in his world, that of New York art occasional very severe respiratory infection), but he and poetry in the fifties and early sixties, O’Hara had was struck down by lymphoma. Whether this disease connected with people in a way very like bp had in would have affected him anyway, we will never know. Canada from the sixties to the eighties. The tone of the When the lymphoma was finally diagnosed in May memoirs, like the tone of the many tributes to bp, now 1992 the HIV virus had already reduced his T-cell remind me of the tone of your and Yvonne’s, Lucy’s and count greatly, and therefore the people treating him for lymphoma could not hit him with the full barrage Eric’s memoirs in this issue. It doesn’t matter what of treatments. And because they could not do that, ’world' such a person lives in, she or he will touch many the lymphoma won. others so fully they will carry happy memories of these Because I did not feel free to mention this part of people to their own deaths. That is perhaps the greatest the story in No. 19/20/21, I also did not feel free to tribute they could have. write about one of the most moving nights of my life: (14 August 1994) the ceremony in May 1993 at the Exhibition Building, Melbourne, when Roger’s quilt was unrolled, along HENRY GASKO with those of about fifty other Victorians who had died from AIDS-related diseases in the previous year. McGregors Road The fully unrolled quilt itself was overwhelming (Jane Beveridge Tisell and other Melbourne fans had prepared it Victoria 3653 during the previous months), but in the same day Elaine and I and quite a few others joined the AIDS We only knew Roger for brief and widely separated Vigil in the City Square, marched with them to the intervals during the late 1970s and 1980s. He always Exhibition Building, and had the extraordinary seemed to be going off to some distant place and we’d experience of entering with them through the little-used front entrance into the mightiest building lose touch for a year or more. But when he came back, in Melbourne. Built in the 1880s, the Exhibition he would welcome us like long-lost family members. Building's floodlit exterior seemed like some Our strongest memories are of Roger in the mid-80s. Bunyanesque Celestial City into which we marched We would receive long, interesting and not always from the Carlton Gardens. The ceremony of unrolling coherent letters from various parts of Europe. He also the quilts is the sort of farewell that any person sent a beautiful stone sphinx from Egypt that I still have should receive, rather than the glum rituals of on my shelf (I had mentioned how much I liked the conventional funerals. basic sphinx shape and legend before he’d left). There is also the memory of the only Botanical Gardens party DOUG BARBOUR we managed to attend, with almost everything focused 11655-72 Avenue around Roger. In fact, there was almost a hush around Edmonton that part of the lake until Roger arrived, and then it was Alberta as though someone had said, ‘Let the party begin.’ Canada T6G 0B9 He was one of the only men that Judy would trust to mind Emily, and he was fantastic with her. He was also the best cat and house sitter we have ever known. It was My mother died in June 1994. It wasn’t as hard to take as it might have been. She had led a good, long life, and just after his return from Egypt (I think) in 1985 that we moved into a new place in Elwood, and then had to go she had been talking for some time of taking her leave, away for a week the very next day. What to do with our quietly she hoped, without falling into a lingering illness two cats, one of whom was named Timmy because his in which she would have felt embarrassed, held back. only discernible personality trait was his timidity. (For Although her last week must have been hard, she died the first week after we got Timmy, he lived exclusively fairly quickly, and was, I believe, glad to go rather than

77 under the fridge; after two days, we started to slide bowls ably serious-minded person. As many of us fully under­ of food and water in to him so that he wouldn’t starve.) stood only afterward. Roger to the rescue, taking brilliant care of the house For some time Thyme was produced on a computer I (the boxes stacked everywhere were transformed into a had connected to a typewriter and so I saw even more livable environment) and having Timmy actually eating of him, and Peter Burns, as they put issues together. This out of his hand. was howjan met him at my little house in Thornbury. I There were other sides of Roger as well, though we remember being pleased to have him as a friend. Or only knew about them vaguely through stories we heard perhaps proud would be the word. Maybe even then I around the sf community: his relationships; his realised he was more mature than I about t he things that handling of the Unicon IV convention (even though I really mattered. was an outsider and not privy to all that was going on, it His mysterious absence during ‘the Egyptian Adven­ was the best local convention I attended until the next ture’ was perhaps my first hint of his hidden mystery. It Worldcon). was a great puzzle. Peter knew some of what was hap­ The last time I met him was sometime in the late 80s pening, and yet I felt Roger had become suddenly a on a bus going up Hoddle Street. We spent 15 minutes myth and would only be real again if he returned. talking, mostly about his job as a social worker; it took a Even before this Roger was a mythic figure. People bit of mental gymnastics to think of Roger with a steady visiting Melbourne would want to be taken to sec him job. We traded addresses and promised to get together (and I have a memory of him standing in the floorway sometime, but by then we had moved up the country at Bell Street, in T-shirt and towel, waving farewell to me and our links with the city had becoming more and and a carload of visitors). more tenuous. We never did see him again, and it wasn’t He was always a puzzle, too. The folk I knew in until a few weeks after his funeral that we learned the common with him were always trying to figure him out. news from Elaine. But it never really mattered, because he just went on (3 Scpiember 1994) being, as Alan said, excellent to everyone. The further in I look, the more I see of me. I was JOHN NEWMAN older, yet he helped me release the child in myself. PO Box 1135 Pompous self-involvement had no place around Roger. Ballarat Mail Centre The lime I saw a lot of Roger was in the period from Ballarat 1982 to 1986 (I guess). It was a time of transition for me, Victoria 3354 slowly getting to know some of the fans in Melbourne. I was born in Melbourne, but met fandom in Sydney, and never really got it together down south. (From Colloquy, ANZAPA 161, December 1994): I was really a bit of a refugee, and I think Roger I’ve been reading some of the things written about realised that. He was always drawing people in, and Roger Weddall, and feeling a bit sorry and a bit guilty making them feel welcome. that I never managed to contribute. The truth was that He had such confidence in the face of people. He every time I tried I stumbled over the very nature of our gave people a chance and yet forced us to confront relationship. ourselves. To shape up. You see, it didn’t seem to me as a series of stories. And so it’s clear to me now. Roger was the last friend Rather there were images, remembered scenes, bits of of my childhood. With him I could be silly, ordownright dialogue, faces and places. stupid. He would reproach me, but be as bad himself I could, for example, never remember when I first later on. We could be serious, but not weighed down by met Roger. I do remember going to where he was living it. I’ll never be as free again. in Rathdowne Street in the middle of 1982. Terry was While speaking at the funeral service his sister Deb with me, I think, and we were delivering FFANZ flyers paused to smile. With a shock I saw it was his smile, and to be included in Thyme. He wasn’t home. my head dropped heavily into my hands with a sob. It That was often the case. He was always doing some­ was the last time I saw him. thing, going somewhere. After he moved to Bell Street (10 December 1994) in Fitzroy I began to drop in fairly regularly. The others in the house, mostly not fans, were neat to talk to even if he wasn’t there. He seemed to create his own environ­ ment. Thinking of Bell Street helps bring the stories in. Dark odyssey Having water pistol fights with him at parties. Shane and I turning his wardrobe upside down. These things used to show me he was a madcap, zany sort of person. Only now in retrospect do I realise that often it was me being DAVID LAKE zany. He was sometimes pissed off! 7 8th Avenue This is how it seems with all the pocket bios. They St Lucia reveal the writer, not the written about. Queensland 4067 Roger could be casual and unreliable, and loved the truly innovative jape (as when we played Catfish on the I’m glad you had a fine Garden Party (TMR 18). I wish bottom of the pool at Swancon 8), but was also a remark- I were social like that and had lots of friends, but I’m

78 not and I haven’t. I have always been very introverted; Maldon put it (991 CE, modernised by me): and far from being in a panic about losing someone, I think I have tended to discard people from my life — Thought shall be harder heart the keener not through any hostility. I'm just a leaver. I have had Courage the greater as our strength lessens. groups of friends in various places where I have lived round the globe, but when I have moved on, I have lost In this poem this is spoken by an old warrior on the lost track of them. When I leave this university department, battlefield, close to the corpse of his leader Earl Byrt- I will leave most of that lot behind, without regrets. noth. The old man goes on: Actually, that isn't entirely my fault. Some of the people I liked best in my Department arc now dead, and the I am ripe-aged I will not hence (etc.) . . . ones who have entered recently are not in the least bit May he ever mourn social. In fact, the Department doesn’t function as a Who from this battle-play thinks to flee. social unit at all, except on the most formal occasions. There are just two or three people I really interact But the word I translate as ‘ripe-aged’ is actually frod (cf. with; I have nearly as many ties with the Classics Depart­ Frodo) — both ‘wise’ and ‘old’. That line in the original ment, and those will continue once I have retired. I reads: belong to their Greek reading circle, which meets once a week. We have nearly finished the Odyssey— well, we Ic com frod feores fram ic ne wille arc getting to the bloody bit, and after that I hope we’ll do the Iliad. The Iliad is a terrible poem, but great, and You see why you have to read poetry in the original. We it never dates. Because human lust and violence don’t in our Greek circle havejust read the most tragic passage date. Troy, Bosnia — it’s all the same. in The Iliad — perhaps in all literature — Hector’s (4 May 1993) speech to his wife, 6.440-465, with the terrible lines:

I feel rather bad about the news of Roger Weddall’s For well this thing do I know in my deepest mind death, because I survived a lymphoma ten years ago — and my heart: and he didn’t. Luckily mine (a lump against the stom­ There will be a day on a time when fallen is Ilios ach wall) was correctly diagnosed almost as soon as it holy. . . began to advertise its existence. I had one week of great fear, when the thing was thought to be a stomach Literature, especially poetry (or prose so intense that it carcinoma (five-year survival rate: 5 per cent) — then reaches the level of poetry and you memorise it un­ they whipped it out, and knew what it was. I needed no awares) is the language of passion, including moral other therapy, and now as a ten-year survivor I’m off passion, and I am using literature now to express my their books, and I suppose my risk of dying of cancer is own passionate commitment to life. It’s all a battlefield, no higher than anybody else’s. I really expect to die of in which we will certainly be killed — but the point is to a heart attack, because I have the right type of person­ ‘go ballsy', as Punch says in Riddley Walker. (Incidentally, ality profile for that — manic compulsive perfectionist, I wonder how Hoban is. The last time I saw him in once called the Class A personality. London, he was in very bad shape — had prostate I have made a ver}' successful adjustment to retire­ cancer, among other things. As Nuland points out, the ment — because I have not in fact retired. They don’t old are usually dying of several diseases at once.) pay me a salary, but I am up to my neck in ‘research’ — Actually, as a warrior in this battle, I am scared stiff. i.e. editing Wells — and I also have a post-grad student I have never been close to anyone’s death, and I am to supervise, simply because I can’t shake her off — deeply afraid that I will prove a coward when some day though in fact I don’t want to teach anyone anything I am confronted with it. Your own death is not so again. In my own mind I am no longer a teacher. I am difficult — especially if it’s quick. throwing a lot of my energy' (quite considerable for My wife has Parkinson’s disease, and it’s getting sixty-five) into a new (unpaid) career, as a nurses’ worse, which is normal. It got abruptly worse at the helper, and perhaps ultimately a paramedic. beginning of 1994, and she was in hospital twice — the I’ve just read a terrific (pun intended) book called second time for a broken arm. That was before I retired. How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland (1993; Chatto, 1994). I came home from the uni and found her lying on the He says everyone should be trained in CPR (cardio­ bedroom floor, between the bed and the wall, unable to pulmonary resuscitation). It’s what you should try if move. She had been there about half an hour, of course someone has a heart attack in front of you. It seldom unable to reach a phone. She had a fracture, as it turned succeeds, but you ought to by — it’s no good merely out, in the upper right arm. I managed to get her up, ringing the ambulance, because if the heart stops, it’s into our car, and to hospital. She has recovered, more brain death in four minutes (maximum). Nuland, an or less, from that fracture now. Since then she has had American medical doctor, is the chap to read, if you many other falls, in one of which she broke her pelvis want to be scared into your wits. in two places. That’s mended now, too — but for many I feel very militant about this, because although the weeks, or months, I was afraid she would one day break universe as a whole is pretty crazy and doomed anyway, her neck. You don’t die directly of Parkinson’s, but you the meaning of Life and Everything is that you’ve got to can die indirectly three ways: (1) from a fall; (2) from keep fighting (even though you're bound to lose in the choking to death, if the disease gets a bad hold on your long run). As the anonymous author of The Battle of throat; (3) euthanasia, usually surreptitious.

79 Marguerite and I don’t belong to the life-at-any-cost — prominently marked on the outside with instruc­ party. In fact, I don’t think that people over, say, eighty- tions. five, should have any unconditional right to life. They (15 August 1994) ought not to cost society millions of dollars (and their loved ones millions of seconds of horror). They ought [4.30 a.m.:] Being sleepless, I have now read TMR to be put quietly out of their misery. Moreover, I think 19/20/21 a bit more. Roger Weddall puts me to shame. that as the populations of the developed countries age There was a man who did the things I only talk about drastically over the next thirty to forty years, euthanasia doing. As his sister put it so well. No saint (?), but will become legal everywhere, and may go on from unique. (How do you define ‘saint’? Roger strikes me as being legal to being, in some places, mandatory. The someone of‘heroic virtue’, which is the category used old and decaying ought to make room for the next by the Catholic Church for canonisation. I’m sure there generation, which they can only do by dying. I am not must be some gay saints — gay in both senses.) opting for something like Logan’s Run; if the hundred- (16 August 1994) year-older is healthy and has most of’s marbles, why, let ’un live. My favourite story about Roger was told to me by Enough of that. But do read Nuland. Peter Bums after I had written The Lark Ascended'. Peter, Roger and several other people travelled to one I have had no fits of depression this year — for one of the Perth conventions by car over the Nullarbor thing, I haven’t had the time. Apart from caring for my Plain. There is a section there where the road comes wife, I also go visiting old ‘clients’, as our Blue Nurses close to the cliff that lines the Great Australian Bight. call them. (Shades of Gene Wolfe! But I don’t take a Nobody climbs down the cliffs, which just go on for sword or black cloak with me on these visits.) The Blue hundreds of miles, overarching the water, which bites Nurses are a Christian-sponsored voluntary home­ in under them. Peter says that every time they visiting association. There’s a laugh for you! Me working stopped for a break near the cliff, Roger would insist for Christians! I have even stood by, in their Day Respite on standing on the edge of the cliff, with his toes over Centre, while one of the nurses has said Grace. I quite the side. ■# liked the last Grace I heard, because the nurse who said it took time to remind God about old so-and-so who was This is an addendum to my letter of 15 August, telling now in hospital and therefore couldn’t be with us. Of you what happened last night (16 August). Good grief, course, you have to accept God mythologically, as a if I go on like this I’ll be landed in a project like Tristram word-symbol for the people, the group, us, the poor Shandy — you can’t record your whole life on paper, bloody humans. But I refuse to bow my head when this because it's winding on while you write. prayer is said. I look straight at God — namely, the I am now at least partly in the revulsion stage I people in the room. foresaw in my last letter. Over the past few days I have Some of my paramedic work is very interesting, been loo consciously wearing a halo or a warrior’s because my ‘clients’ are interesting people. One, espe­ helmet. I repent of that. The serious problems of life cially, who was born a Romanian national, but of French and death are best solved not by striking a heroic atti­ parentage and Sorbonne-educated, and had a mysteri­ tude, but by using your intellect. Enlightenment, not ous career during World War II dodging the Gestapo moral passion. The Buddhists are right and the Chris­ through Alsace, Vienna and Poland. I told him he ought tians are wrong (to pervert one line from the Christian to write his memoirs before it’s too late. And now, alas, heroic poem Le Chanson de Roland). ‘Be not righteous it may be too late, because when I went to visit him today, overmuch . . . why shouldst thou destroy thyself?’ I didn’t find him; a neighbour told me he was in hospital (Ecclesiastes, that nihilist mole that somehow burrowed with pneumonia. into the Bible). ‘Pas Irop rfezzfe’(Talleyrand). Hector was Pneumonia. The ‘old man’s friend’ — because it kills wrong, after all, and his wife was right — he should have quickly without too much pain. Of course Jack (not his taken more care to preserve his own life. That way, just real name) had heart trouble as well — but as I said (and possibly, Troy might not have fallen, literature might Nuland says) the old have several diseases at once. Hell, have been deprived of its greatest tragedy .. . but tragic I selfishly hope Jack survives this, because I want to hear attitudes are not the best approach to life. The Spartans more about Poland and the forest where the Germans should have retreated from Thermopylae, and lived to never went (because if they did they didn’t come out fight another day. again; the Poles killed them). And the wild boar, and (Here, of course, I am kicking half of my personality the Deutsche-Arbeits-Front, and, and . . . Jack is/was in the teeth. I will probably repent of my repentance.) very deaf, so it took my a long time to extract these My heroics about my Class A personality received a stories. Of course, I don’t know if they were even true, dramatic confirmation last night, little more than or which side he really was on in the War, but when he twenty-four hours after I wrote that first paragraph. did produce these yarns they were very good ones. Confirmation, or retribution? I am sure I psyched myself That’s one annoying thing about death — it deprives into it. ‘Il’ was something that felt like a mild heart attack the human race of interesting information. I have be­ (actually, atrial fibrillation). gun to think of my death in this way, too. My life has not I’ve had goes of this before, when the heart seems to been externally adventurous, but if I wrote a truthful flutter in the chest. But previous bouts lasted seconds, memoir of the internal torments of my adolescence it or in the worst case about five minutes. Last night’s bout would probably interest psychologists. Actually, I have lasted seventy minutes, from 9.50 to 11 p.m., and only written such a memoir, and I keep it in my Death folder stopped when a doctor called. Then it stopped

80 promptly, as soon as he made his diagnosis. (Therefore Thank you for your information about heart fibrillation. psych induced, no?) It is precisely a stroke I’m afraid of — I’d rather be dead Yes, I was in slight danger of death — I mean, more outright than half paralysed. I've had another go of the than usual, since we arc all in danger of death every thing, about two weeks ago. This time I said ‘To hell with second. My pulse rate, for over an hour, was up from it!’ and just went on working, and after an hour it G0+ to 80, an increase of some 30 per cent, and worse stopped. still, the heartbeat was irregular. And an hour is a long (27 September 1995) time to keep waiting for the damn thing to stop altogether, especially lying on the bedroom floor with # I’ll go into more detail in SF Commentary, but i'll your wife looking on helplessly. mention here the definitive edition of Wells’ First Men I have told her since (this morning) that if I do die in the Moon that David has edited. The bad joke at the of a heart attack some day before her eyes, it will be end of the process is that it is available only from American Oxford University Press. David is currently much worse for her than for me. I read an account in preparing a companion definitive edition of The Nuland of a heart attack from the inside. This was a guy Invisible Man. who was resuscitated in those crucial four minutes, he said that after the initial blow, he felt his consciousness I’ve done a lot of reading in the past months, especially simply fade peacefully away, like a light going out in slow in philosophy of various sorts. One brilliant book was motion. There is no horror at all — the horrors are David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion reserved for those who watch. (Nuland describes these (1779). In spite of its date, it’s beautiful and easy' prose. in graphic detail, for he experienced them as a young Hume impressed me with the irrelevance of the idea of intern. He failed to save his patient. Afterwards, he was God. If there is a Creator, so what? He/she obviously in shock and weeping. His friend put his arm round him isn’t ‘good’ in our sense of the word, and it is therefore and said, ‘Now you know what it’s like to be a doctor.’) pointless to worship him/her, or base morality there. (I During that long hour-phis, I was reasonably calm. intuited that long ago, in my short story ‘Creator’.) We were facing a bad dilemma: was this a life-threaten­ People like Paul Davies and Fred Hoyle who find a ing crisis or not? I’ve had it before . . . but the minutes creative hand in the ‘design’ of physical laws that make stretched on, and the thing didn't go away. Then I told life possible should read Hume, and see how little this Marguerite to ring our GP’s locum. She got his secre­ proves. It makes quite good sense to say, Yes, there is a tary, who promptly asked whether she wanted the God, but he is heartless or evil. ambulance or (in another half hour or so) the locum. You can reach the same conclusion another way. I told her to opt for the locum after half an hour, very Plato raised the point in his Euthyphrcr. are good actions conscious that I might be making the wrong decision. good because the gods command them, or do the gods Luckily it turned out to be the right decision. command them because they are good, period? If the At a pulse rate of 80, the thing is not usually danger­ first option is right, the gods/God might have com­ ous. But if it goes much above that, it maybe. The worst manded murder, rape, adultery, theft . . . and then danger is that the rapid irregular beating will shake free these things would be ‘good’. Plato comes down hard a flake of blood clot which coats one of the vessels, and against this view, and I suppose most of us would, too. that can zoom up to the brain and cause a stroke. Good is what we intuit as good, without reference to Fibrillation is a common phenomenon in the elderly; it God. Therefore God is perfectly irrelevant to goodness. is best warded off with half an aspirin a day. Goodness does notspring from religion; rather, it’s the (16 August 1995) other way about. Morality is primary; religion is an emotional pat on the back or reinforcing of moral- I wonder what difference my revulsion from heroism ity.. .. will make to my actual conduct of life. Not much overtly, I’d like to be born again, with a different character. I guess. Bit I intend to be a more cautious Volunteer, (Not Born Again in a religious sensei) I am far too remembering that charity should begin at home, and introvert for real happiness. I am certainly not an ideal rashness is no part of my duty. I had better shut up now, Tribesman. When I look at other people, esepcially or I will utter more heroics. Damn it, those things are people suffering from age and other severe handicaps, almost inescapable, and even if you don’t write them, I marvel at their lust for life. I sometimes think I belong you think them (‘Yes, I did rather well in thatscene, after to a different species. And they are the ones I approve all, showed grace under pressure, like a Hemingway of, not myself. They are Darwinian winners — they are man’). Horrible, isn’t it? But human egoism is endless. extrovert, they get pleasure from life even though they The real saints, I think, never write, and probably don't are blind, deaf and dumb, 90 years old, or whatever. even think they’re saints. But I don’t suppose anyone is Whereas I think death would be preferable to so much. really perfectly selfless — evolution makes that impos­ I seem to be quite healthy again. There is nothing sible. organically wrong with me. All my stomach trouble was I flounder between different value systems. I was because of stress — at Marguerite’s illness. That still brought up a Christian on a diet of almost pure heroics. gives me stress, all right. Ever)' week I try to see some I wish now I had been brought up a sensible Buddhist improvement, and instead, see signs of deterioration. or a worldly-wise humanist. But I wasn’t: I got the edu­ The books say Parkinson’s is not a mental illness. Well, cation that reinforced all the extreme tendencies of my the books seem to be wrong in her case. She definitely genes. isn’t as bright as she was. One proof is reading. She used (17 August 1995) to be a faster reader than I. Now she is painfully slow.

81 yet she still falls apart every three hours. If she gets much And there’s the matter of her financial dealings. She worse, and I know what that can be like, she has told me simply doesn’t know what she’s got. There is no list. I she will want to die ... have tried to make one, but in many cases there are no (27june 1995) records of the last two years. And then, there is her walking. She is now on a very high dose of the basic drug,

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(From Page 55) twerple werple glutz meeeep 17January 1995 12:05:23 p.m. I am now up and about, and though by no means fully recovered am sufficiently far on the way to be able Patrie has been much travelled. At six weeks we went on to see the end. I have decreed that I will take my first job one of our East Gippsland odysseys. He visited Sale to in April and be fully recovered by June. One year is meet with Darren McCubbin, the National Town Crier enough! 11 Champion and loudest man on earth. With Darren we went to a Who Dunnit Murder Night for the Nambrok Of course, while all this was going on we were pregnant. Tennis Club at the Nambrok Hall. Darren organises It has stopped being a pregnancy and has become a these little social events throughout Gippsland. This one Patrie: as all who came to the Naming know. He is a seemed to have the entire population of Nambrok, all bouncing big bairn and the apple of our eyes. I am in character. We sat on the sidelines and watched in awe philosophically opposed to children in general, but you as Darren controlled an improvisation containing about cannot argue with a biological clock (a fact that largely a hundred participants towards the goal of finding out contributes to the current state of the planet), and now Who Dunnit. It was, predictably, the Local Policeman. we have a Patrie Pendragon Ellis Ashby. Maybe his On the way home we were treated to the most powerful generation will solve the problems we have created, if we leave them anything with which to work. Good Luck thunderstorm with which I have ever been surrounded. Patrie Mate! The land around Nambrok is flat and dedicated to Max had Patrie at the Women’s Hospital in the growing cows and cabbages. All around lightning Birthing Unit. I was present, but confined to a chair and flashed down to the ground at such a frequency that wearing my then new back brace. The birth was fast and often it seemed brighter than daylight. fierce. I hope never again to see a body in so much pain From Sale, we went on to Mallacoota. Max and I spent as Max experienced. For the pain he caused and for his a lot of time there. It is one of our homes away from own sweet self Patrie is doubly dear. He is doing all those home. We have been involved in their arts festival for baby things that mostly seem to involve runny bodily nearly ten years, and over that time we have almost functions punctuated with noises of various emotional become part of the community. I have conducted pup­ colours and energetic horizontal go go dancing. petry workshops, taught stilt walking and mask making at the school for so long that almost every child in the town and a good number of the younger adults know me. (17 January 1995) 82 Who reads SUBSCRIPTION Tirra Lirra? FORM An annual subscription will ensure that your copy of Tirra Lirra is mailed directly to you.

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